


Ninety-Nine Yew Trees

by Draycevixen



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, Assumed Identity, Big Bang Challenge, Bucolic countryside, Character Study, Community: ci5_boxoftricks, Excessive tea drinking, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-19
Updated: 2011-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-19 14:08:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/pseuds/Draycevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A secret from Bodie’s past has come close to killing him. With Cowley refusing to accept his resignation from CI5 and Doyle turning his back on him, Bodie has fled to his bolt-hole in the countryside to lick his wounds and to try to work out what to do next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

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](http://s233.photobucket.com/albums/ee59/draycevixen/Textures/?action=view&current=pw99.jpg)   


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Doyle had been sitting in the parked car for twenty minutes, his fingers drumming idly on the steering wheel. He’d told Cowley he wouldn’t do it, that he could fire him for it, but he wouldn’t do it. Even parked under the trees it was too warm to be sitting there with the windows rolled up. Doyle wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt sleeve and stared at the cottage.

If Bodie had wanted his help he’d have stayed in London. Usually, they looked after each other, dropped by the flat bringing takeaway and carefully engineered casual insults designed to stop the slide in to self-pity. How pathetic was it that they had a “usually” about being injured? Not that Bodie would have got his help. Doyle tightened his fingers reflexively. He glanced over at the large brown envelope lying on the passenger’s seat and then back out through the windscreen. The cottage still looked deserted, still looked exactly like it had when he’d last looked at it two minutes ago. Bloody Cowley. When Doyle had said no a second time Cowley had bribed him. All he had to do was drop off the envelope and then he didn’t have to be back at HQ for eight days. He could do this. Even if the cottage wasn’t as deserted as it looked like it was, he could talk to anyone, even Bodie if he absolutely had to, for five minutes. Five minutes and the next eight days were his. Doyle got out of the car.

Outside of the stuffy car, the world was a very different place. A light wind rippled across the beech trees lining the lane, the paler underside of the leaves forming wave patterns as Doyle breathed deeply and turned instinctively into the breeze. He had to admit that it was a beautiful place. The street was bordered on one side by an old church, the church he was sure gave St. Mary’s street its name, and he could see old tombstones amidst rows of trees behind the wall. It was the sort of village, Doyle instinctively knew, where those graves belonged to the ancestors of the little kids he’d seen playing at the primary school when he’d driven past it. This was the sort of place where if you were lucky enough to be born here you’d never leave. He could think of less likely places to find a cold-blooded killer, but not many. Tucking the envelope firmly under one arm he crossed the street.

The garden gate was squeaky on its hinges and Doyle was careful opening it, hoping to make as little noise as possible. The garden beyond had been mowed and there were a few stubborn shrubs clinging to what must have once been flower beds but it looked sadly neglected compared to the abundant gardens on either side of the neighbour’s hedges. He knocked quietly on the front door, no point in disturbing the neighbours after all. No answer. Bodie obviously wasn’t home as even in his present condition he’d have responded. The little porch over the door contained a miniscule bench and Doyle pondered wedging Cowley’s envelope under it. No one would be able to see from the street and Bodie would find it when he got home. No, he couldn’t do it, he’d promised Cowley that he’d deliver it, so he knocked again. Still no answer. Bodie had already been in the cottage three days. By now he’d probably be chasing village wenches around the village green even if he had to do it in a wheelchair. Doyle didn’t want to see that, didn’t want to see Bodie at all really. He decided, one more knock and then he’d just leave the envelope.

“Are you looking for Will?” A face appeared over the hedge, causing Doyle to jump. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, young man.”

The elderly but healthy looking woman was beaming at him, her face framed by a huge straw hat that had seen better days. The effect was somehow enhanced by the smudge of dirt on her cheek.

“Will’ll be delighted to have a visitor.” As she spoke she gestured with hands encased in bright green gardening gloves, the blade of her trowel catching the light.

“I’m just here to drop something off for... Will” Doyle had been taught to be polite to his elders. “Perhaps I could leave it with you?”

“Oh, where are my manners? Why don’t you come round, so we don’t have to talk over this here hedge like savages?” She spoke with a deep West Country accent that could draw simple sentences out to sound like she was reading the entire telephone book to him.

Doyle brought the envelope up to rest on the hedge. “If I could just leave this—”

“I’m sorry dear, my hearing isn’t what it used to be, just pop round” and with that she disappeared back behind the hedge.

Doyle looked longingly at that spot he’d picked out for the envelope under the porch bench then shrugged it off and headed back to the garden gate. On the other side of the hedge it was a different world, banked and crowded flower beds on either side of the garden path a riot of colour, the height of the beds explaining how the old lady had been able to peer down at him over the hedge. She was waiting for him near her gate.

“I’m Mrs. Hammond. Will’s probably sitting in the back garden, sits out there all day he does.” She turned back towards her cottage, forcing Doyle to follow her out of politeness. “You see there’s no path round the cottages, you have to go through them to get to the back gardens.”

It didn’t take a genius to work out why they were headed up the path to her cottage and it wasn’t what Doyle wanted at all.

“It’s too much trouble, if you’ll just—”

“Nonsense, Will’s not had any visitors at all. It’ll do him a world of good to see a friendly face.”

Doyle supposed it would, now if only Murphy had brought the envelope instead of him.

“Really, Mrs. Hammond, if I could just leave this envelope with you, there’s no need to disturb him.”

But Mrs. Hammond was already pushing her front door open and Ray was forced again to follow her. She shepherded Doyle through her cottage that was just as crowded as her front garden was although to a much more hideous effect. It was full of figurines of milk maids, with lace doilies smothering anything that didn’t move and that wasn’t already covered by an antimacassar or hideously large botanical patterns. It reminded Doyle of his own grandmother, how the prints in her house had seemed to grow larger as she’d seemed to shrink. Mrs. Hammond led him on through her kitchen and out the back door.

“Slim young lad like you can just squeeze through the gap in the hedge, could do it myself when I was younger, mind I wouldn’t try it now. Just watch yourself, in those tight trousers of yours you might snag something vital.”

No, Mrs. Hammond wasn’t quite like Doyle’s grandmother.

“Sorry to leave you here but I have to get back to my flower borders else the neighbours will be talking about me, Mrs. Downey three doors up has a particularly vicious tongue.”

Doyle gingerly approached the hedge, easily spotting the gap Mrs. Hammond had referred too, the ground beneath it hard and clear of grass where generations of neighbours had obviously passed backwards and forwards before the hedge had got so tall, a good foot over Doyle’s head. Through the gap he could see Bodie sitting in an old wooden garden chair, propped up with needlepoint pillows that had obviously come from inside the cottage. Doyle turned sideways to slide through the hedge, the movement accompanied by the scraping noises of the branches against his body. At the noise, Bodie started slightly in his chair and then slumped back when he saw that it was Doyle. The beginning of one of Bodie’s patented eight year old boy grins lit up his battered face before his eyes dropped to the large brown envelope that Doyle was holding. Then his face went carefully blank.

“Thought Cowley was sending Murphy. Thanks, you can just leave it on the table.”

Doyle was annoyed to find himself clutching the envelope to his chest like a shield and overcompensated as a result, dropping in to the seat on the other side of the garden table, relaxing back in to it, determined not to let Bodie see how tense he really was.

“So, let me guess, the Cow asked you to talk me into coming back.”

Doyle watched as Bodie raised one hand before obviously thinking better of it and letting it drop back in to his lap. He moved his left hand, the fingers protruding from his cast, to pull the cuff of his right sleeve down over his bandaged right hand. The gesture was a reflex, Doyle was sure Bodie didn’t know how telling it was.

“Well you can tell the Cow—”

“I’m just here to drop off an envelope. I’ve got no interest in whether you come back or not, couldn’t care less. I won’t be working with you again that’s for bloody certain.”

“Right, you’ve already made that clear enough. So what did he bribe you with to come here?”

Doyle dropped the envelope on the table, next to a small basket.

“Eight days off.”

Bodie’s head dropped to look down at his hands. It gave Doyle a chance to look him over more closely, from Bodie’s uncharacteristic beard to the fact that he’d never seen Bodie looking this thin, his shirt hanging off him, his trousers loose through the hips. Even after days on a stakeout he’d never seen Bodie look this rough.

“He gave you eight days? _Eight days?_ You _really_ didn’t want to come here.”

Bodie’s voice was rusty sounding, like he hadn’t had much cause to use it in quite a while. There was an underlying tremble in it too, that almost made Doyle feel guilty about it but Doyle wasn’t having any of that. He pulled the basket towards him and peered inside. It contained a tennis ball, large rubber bands and a big ball of what looked like Play-Doh.

“So what’s all this then, thought you’d had enough when you left the rehabilitation centre?”

“Had enough with CI5, but I’m not stupid.”

Doyle didn’t even try to hide his snort of derision.

“Physio made it clear, keep doing the hand exercises or end up crippled. I’ve got plans—”

“Mercs hiring again are they?”

Bodie ignored him. “Still got a lot of life to get through, with or without... CI5.”

Bodie’s eyes met his for the first time since he’d slipped through the hedge. Doyle didn’t like the reproach he could see there and he wasn’t going to stand for it.

“Christ, that beard. Looks like a rat died on your face.”

“I find it stops strange men from getting funny ideas. Right, _Doyle?_ ”

Doyle wasn’t going to be talking about that either.

Bodie waited for a moment and then slowly wrapped both hands around the glass of water in front of him and sipped from it before carefully lowering it back to the table.

“Fine host you are Bodie, not even going to offer me a cuppa?”

“If you want tea, you’ll have to make it yourself. Although I’ve got no milk. Or sugar. Or even tea for that matter.”

Doyle wasn’t going to ask, it wasn’t like he was concerned about Bodie or anything, far from it. “So what do you have in your kitchen?”

“Some lovely tap water and a few cans of soup. You can have that if you want, think I’ve got some oxtail.”

“You should have stayed in London if you didn’t want to stay at the centre, not come out here to the middle of nowhere.”

“I wouldn’t have had any more help there than I do here, would I?”

Doyle couldn’t stop himself from flinching and was irritated to realize that Bodie had seen it.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry about everything, Ray. How’s the squad doing?”

Now Bodie was trying to change the subject and Doyle wasn’t here to chat.

“I bet the local shop in a village like this one would still deliver your shopping for you.”

“No phone.”

“How about that Mrs. Hammond next door, bet she’d—”

“I don’t like to impose on her any further. She’s already kind enough to change my bandages for me, stalwart of the local St. John’s ambulance brigade she is.”

“Christ Bodie, you’ve got to do something, you look like shit.” Doyle hadn’t even known he was going to blurt that out.

“Thanks for the lovely visit Doyle, I feel loads better now.”

“Not here to make you feel better, just to deliver this envelope.” Doyle rose to his feet, intending to say goodbye and slide back through the hedge but his feet wouldn’t seem to move. He ran his fingers across his own jaw line. “You could at least shave that off, tidy yourself up a bit.”

“It’s painful to raise my arms up high enough to shave or to wash my hair.”

“Hands?”

“Ribs too. There’s no shower, the cottage is too old. I could get in the bath all right I think but I’m not strong enough yet to be confident about getting out of the bath on my own. If I ended up having to shout for help Mrs. Hammond would be the only one who might hear me and I think me in the nude might be a bit much for her.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“So I’ve been taking sink baths, at least managing to get clean enough so I can stand myself.”

It didn’t matter to Doyle any more, nothing about Bodie did. “I’m here, you can take a bath at least. We’ll see if we can find an old shopping bag to keep that cast dry, get you settled in there and then I’ll nip up the road to the shop I saw on the corner and get you some stuff in. I might even make you some dinner.”

“Why would you do all that?”

“Because I wouldn’t leave even my worst enemy in this state.”

 

.


	2. Chapter 2

.

Bodie sighed deeply and sunk slightly lower in to the steaming hot bath water, leaning his head back to rest against the small towel Doyle had thoughtfully folded up in to a makeshift pillow. Doyle. Now there was a surprise. Bodie hadn’t ever expected to see him again. Course he wouldn’t have if Cowley hadn’t bribed Doyle into delivering the envelope. It didn’t take a genius to work out that Cowley had hoped that Doyle would talk him in to returning to CI5 which just went so show that Cowley didn’t know everything. The fact that Cowley had ended up having to offer Doyle eight days off should have told him something as he was willing to bet that Cowley’s original offer had been more like two days off.

The bathroom was downstairs just off the kitchen, not surprising given the size of the bath. The cottage was too old to even have had a bathroom originally, the space used to be a large cupboard, part of the pantry and the space under the stairs and there was no way they would have ever got that behemoth bath up the stairs in the old cottage. Doyle had filled the bath for him and after checking that Bodie didn’t need any help getting in he’d left for the shop. Bodie had been surprised to see the bath full of bubble bath, Doyle’s little joke. He’d wondered just how old the bottle was and whilst he was pretty sure he now smelled like a tart’s bedroom it was still rather nice, hiding the sight of most of his own bruised and still stitched in places body from his own eyes. He ran a hand over his hairy chin, thought again about shaving but feeling the deep aching pull under his arm decided to leave it. The state he was in now he couldn’t have won a fight with a pissed off kitten. If the kitten brought friends it would be a blood bath.

“Back in a bit, try not to fall asleep in there” Doyle had yelled before Bodie had heard the front door slam.

 

”Back in a bit, try to stay awake now. The boss would hate you to miss any of this.”

Like sleep was an option. Blood from the cut over his right eyebrow was dripping in to his eye and he leaned further back against the wall gasping as the pain from his ribs flared again, bracing his left arm against his chest so he could swipe at his face. His left arm was a continuous dull throb of agony. Bodie was sure they’d broken it the day before. They were efficient and knew what they were doing, he’d only blacked out once and he still didn’t have a single fucking clue who they were and what they wanted as they hadn’t actually asked him any questions. He found himself shivering, leaning against the damp wall, his vest and underpants little protection against the cold. Then the door opened and he saw the one person he’d never wanted to see again. He’d found himself fighting his training, the training that said always try to look like they’ve beaten you and wait for an opportunity when they get cocky and sloppy. In front of this man he never wanted to look weak, not even for a moment, even if it was the truth.

“My men tell me you’ve been giving them gyp. Dawson’s still walking funny from your boot.”

“Worth the broken arm” Bodie gritted out between his teeth and then spat blood on the floor.

“He deserved it. They should have had the sense to take your clothes and boots to begin with. Stupid, very stupid on their part and on yours too, as it happens. You’ve given Dawson some unfortunate ideas on how to proceed, well, unfortunate for you. Perhaps we need to take a different approach first, perhaps see if we can break that partner of yours, what’s his name again?”

“Don’t have. A... partner.” This was important. Bodie put what little energy he had left in to trying to sound confused by the question.

“Don’t waste my time, His name’s Ray Doyle. I’ve learned everything there is to know about you since I got back to England. I’m going to have my men pick him up and then I’m going to...” He leaned closer, keeping his voice low so that only Bodie could hear.

“Doyle!”

 

Bodie jerked awake, his cast smacking against the side of the bath causing Bodie to almost black out for a moment as his muscles went rigid in response, tightening painfully across his damaged ribs, water slopping over the side of the bath.

Doyle’s head appeared round the door. “Christ, what have you done to yourself now? All I yelled was ‘it’s Doyle, don’t panic.’ Let me put the shopping away and I’ll be back.”

Bodie’s right hand clenched feebly against the side of the bath as he waited for his breathing to return to normal.

 

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	3. Chapter 3

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It only took a few minutes for Doyle to get the shopping put away and the oven turned on. He stopped for a moment to stare out of the kitchen window. If he had to guess, Bodie had nodded off in the bath and the nightmares had come back again. There’d been quite a few times in the hospital where he’d wanted to wake Bodie from them, to hold him, soothe him, only he was so badly hurt, he couldn’t really be moved and... Doyle ruthlessly repressed the memory of the frustration he’d felt. No, that door was closed and now he was ashamed that he’d ever had those sorts of feelings for Bodie. He started to roll up his sleeves as he headed back to the bathroom. Time to fish Bodie out of the bath.

“All right then, let’s be having you.”

Doyle could see from the way Bodie’s hair was still matted to the top of his head that he hadn’t managed to wash it. Course the poor bugger couldn’t comfortably raise his arms that high, didn’t make any difference if he was sitting in the bath or not and there certainly wasn’t any way he could have slid down to get his head underwater. Bodie was hunched over, his broken arm, held close to his chest, covered in the remnants of a plastic shopping bag and some surgical tape to keep his cast dry. Doyle felt the brief impulse to hold him, Bodie looking really vulnerable, but he ruthlessly pushed the feeling down. The truth was that feeling sorry for Bodie wasn’t going to do either of them any good.

“Christ look at you, get you away from London for a few weeks and man-about-town Bodie goes to the dogs. Got to do something with this hair of yours, don’t think even the country girls will go for you like this.”

His voice was brisk and cheery but his hands were gentle on Bodie’s shoulders as he pressed slightly, Bodie of course immediately understanding it as a signal to inch slowly and carefully forward in the bath.

“That’ll do.”

Doyle spotted Bodie’s toilet bag on the shelf behind the bath and quickly found the shampoo, placing it on the floor beside the bath.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky though” Doyle left the bathroom door open and raised his voice as he quickly walked back in to the kitchen to find a glass and returned “and one of them’ll fancy herself as Delilah” he kneeled down at the head of the bath, behind Bodie “and cut it for you. I’ve never seen it this long before, can just imagine what the Cow would have to say about it, you...” Doyle’s chatter died as he got his first really close-up look at Bodie’s back. It was still a kaleidoscope of half-healed bruises disappearing in to the bubbles that came almost halfway up Bodie’s back and he could see a couple of places where stitches hadn’t been removed for very long, the skin still pink and puckered. Worse, there was still a line of stitches to the right of his spine and Doyle’s breath caught at the memory of why they were there. His fingers had reached out to hover over them before he really realized what he was doing. “Bodie I—”

“It’s not as bad as it looks, I’ve always bruised easily, got delicate porcelain skin I have, not like some louts I could name.”

Doyle remained silent.

“Look, if you’re going to sit back there gawping at it then the least you could do is wash it for me, got soap and a sponge in the bath rack here.”

Doyle shook it off. “Yeah mate, porcelain skin.” Doyle leaned around him to get the soap and sponge, carefully keeping his eyes level, glad of the bubbles that concealed Bodie’s lower body. “You know they make toilets out of porcelain, right?”

Bodie snorted in response as Doyle lathered up the sponge and leaned in to gently run it over Bodie’s back, careful to stay above the waterline and to keep his hands from making direct contact with Bodie’s skin. Doyle was annoyed with himself for feeling so much empathy but then no one should ever want bad things to happen to their partner, _ex-partner_ , and they’d had a long history together.

“Close your eyes, I’m going to dump a glass of water over your head.”

Doyle poured out a blob of shampoo and then worked it gently in to Bodie’s hair, conscious that there might be more bruises and healed cuts he couldn’t see. Bodie had been bleeding from several small wounds on his head when—

“Bugger Doyle, claws!”

“Sorry, wanted to make sure it gets clean.” Doyle hadn’t even realized that his fingers had tightened at the memory.

He worked the shampoo through Bodie’s hair, before rinsing it several times with more glasses of water. He ran his fingers through the silky wet strands checking it was clean before standing up and getting a towel to wrap around Bodie’s head, blotting off most of the excess water. As Doyle stood over him he noticed that the rinsing had killed most of the remaining bubbles and as Bodie shifted he realized that Bodie was wearing a pair of shorts in the bath. Bodie didn’t even trust him enough to have just left his underpants on. Doyle mouth set in to a hard line as he bit back on the urge to let Bodie have it. He wouldn’t give Bodie the satisfaction of showing how much it bothered him. He threw the towel on the floor and turned around to pick up another dry one, slinging it over his shoulder.

“All right, let’s get you out of there.” He bent over the bath, sliding his arms back slightly under Bodie’s and grasping hold of the bath’s sides. “I’ll brace you and you can set your own speed, just let me know if you need me to move.”

Bodie’s grip was tentative on his arms but Doyle took the strain as Bodie got slowly to his feet before helping him step carefully out of the high sided bath. As Doyle’s hands slid to Bodie’s waist he could feel him flinch but forced himself not to just snatch his hands back and walk straight away out of the cottage. Instead, he waited until Bodie was standing firmly on both feet and draped the towel around him.

“You need any more help?”

“No, Doyle, thanks.”

“I’ll make some tea, dinner’s in the oven.”

 

When Bodie joined him in the kitchen, dressed in loose trousers with his shirt buttoned up but still not tucked in, Doyle settled him in to a chair and then put a steaming mug of tea in front of him.

“Doyle, could you redo my bandage for me?” He held up his right hand. “I hate to ask but Mrs. Hammond—”

“No problem.” Doyle retrieved a clean bandage from the cupboard Bodie indicated and quickly re-bandaged Bodie’s hand. “I’m surprised you don’t still have your ribs strapped up.”

“The rehabilitation centre the Cow had me in is very cutting edge and they say strapping cracked ribs does more harm than good. My ribs seem to be doing better than the last time I cracked one so there might be something in it.”

“Fair enough then.” Doyle turned to the cooker. He couldn’t believe the size of the grin on Bodie’s face when he put the plate of fish and chips down in front of him.

“Thanks mate, this looks bloody lovely.”

“It’s from the chippy up on the High street.” Doyle sat down on the other side of the small table, pulling his own plate towards him. “I told them to put the salt and vinegar on.”

Doyle watched him start to awkwardly pick up the knife and fork then put them down.

“I could cut your food up if you like.”

“Sod off, Doyle” but Bodie was still grinning at him. He put the knife down and picked up the fork in his right hand and started to attack the chips. “I felt sure you’d have me on yoghurt and bean sprouts.”

“Nah, never thought I’d say this to you of all people but you need fattening up, your clothes are hanging off you.”

 

Forty minutes later, after more tea and some chocolate for the invalid, Bodie was dozing on the couch, his belly full, his longer hair still curling damply around his ears. Doyle had offered him a beer but Bodie had reluctantly declined. While his course of antibiotics was over he still had a couple of days left of weaning off the co-codamol, grateful to be off the morphine they’d originally had him on. He looked so peaceful Doyle didn’t like to disturb him but he had to do it.

“Bodie, sorry to wake you, but I’ll be pushing off now and you really shouldn’t fall asleep down here.”

“It’s all right, I’ve been sleeping here.”

“You what?”

“On the couch. Almost fell on the stairs first day I was here, haven’t really trusted myself since. Besides, I’m more comfortable sleeping on my left side so the couch is wide enough.”

Doyle eyed the rather dubious couch. He could see the way it sagged in the middle and was sure it wasn’t helping Bodie’s recovery.

“Thanks for your help, Ray. I appreciate it, ‘specially as I understand why you wouldn’t have.”

“Bodie I—”

“If you don’t fancy the drive this late you can sleep in the spare room if you want, upstairs to the left, clean sheets in the airing cupboard on the landing.”

“All right, thanks, it’d be easier to find a hotel tomorrow rather than at this time of night. Look, if I’m staying, we may as well get you in to a real bed, at least for tonight.”

“It’s too much trouble...” Doyle could see how wistfully Bodie was eyeing the stairs.

“Nah, I’ve hauled your carcass over worse things than a few stairs. Up you get. You go and sort yourself out in the bathroom, less you need help with brushing your teeth or pointing percy at the porcelain—”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“—And I’ll run up stairs and see if I can find some blankets in that airing cupboard to keep you wedged up on your side.”

 

It had taken twenty minutes to get Bodie settled in to bed. When Doyle had gone back downstairs for him, he’d emerged from the bathroom dressed in pyjamas done up all the way to the neck. Doyle hadn’t even known that pyjamas could do up all the way to the neck, let alone that Bodie owned a pair of them. Bodie must have got them out of his bags stashed neatly behind the couch. At least Bodie hadn’t been stupid enough to try to carry those upstairs. Bodie has insisted that he would get himself up the stairs if Doyle could just follow him up as a safety measure. Progress had been maddeningly slow but Bodie had made it up there with only one real stop to catch his balance. Bodie had thanked him again for his help before turning off his bedside lamp.

Doyle sat on the couch watching the news, his hands wrapped around the mug of tea he’d made as soon as he’d come back down. He knew he should just leave in the morning, Bodie had brought all this on himself after all, but he couldn’t do it. Just because he didn’t care about the bastard any more, didn’t mean he didn’t still owe him for a thousand different things. He’d give Bodie two days of his holiday, still plenty of time left to get to Weston, bask on the beach, weather permitting, maybe pick up a bird or two. Yeah, he could give Bodie a couple of days.

 

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	4. Chapter 4

.

Just for once, no one was shooting at them. Bodie took his hat off, swiping at the sweat on his face and neck with an old handkerchief before shoving it back in to his pocket. He would have worried about where Andy was but he could see a gang of raggedy looking children up ahead, shouting and laughing, and knew he’d find Andy at the centre of them. As he reached them, some of the kids turned towards him and he handed out the few coins he had in his pocket and the sweets he’d been saving for later as he made his way through them. Andy was handing over the last of his sweets and laughing harder than any of the kids “that’s it, you little vultures, now go and play.” He shooed them away as Bodie sat down beside him. One of the little girls lagged behind, fascinated by the book Andy was holding, running her little hand hesitantly over the red binding, obviously taken with how the light was reflecting off the small metal leaf hanging off the end of its ribbon bookmark.

While Andy talked to the little girl or at least tried to with his limited knowledge of the local dialect, Bodie just enjoyed looking at him. Handsome, comfortable in his own skin, confident in his ability to deal with the world and always prepared to meet its disasters with laughter and a well-timed joke in dubious taste, Andy was everything Bodie wanted to be. Everything Bodie wanted.

As he watched, Andy pulled a cellophane wrapped bright red lollipop out of his jacket pocket and presented it to the little girl with a small bow. She took it, her face almost disappearing in the biggest grin Bodie had ever seen and ran off to join her friends.

“You spoil them.”

“You can’t spoil these kids, they’ve seen too much and already know too many things no kid should ever know.”

Bodie was happy to sit there, shoulder to shoulder with Andy, watching the kids chase each other and the couple of scrubby looking dogs that always showed up wherever the kids were. One of the bigger boys was attempting a strong man act, two smaller boys balanced on his shoulders and Bodie turned away to watch them as they followed it up with a series of tumbler moves down the beaten dirt path that passed for a road.

He turned back to point them out to Andy only to find his body strewn like a broken rag doll, his face blown off.

 

Bodie woke up thrashing in the sheets, in agony from both the nightmare and the strain he was putting on his injuries. As he shuddered in the dark, trying to calm down, trying to remember where he was and why and shove the past back in to the box where it belonged, he was just grateful that he hadn’t woken Doyle up.

 

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	5. Chapter 5

.

Doyle woke up early, sunlight flooding through the thin curtains at the window. He swung his legs over to sit on the edge of the bed, scratching at his chest hair, waiting for the world to come in to focus.

After he’d stayed up until the early hours of the morning, drinking gallons of tea and letting his mind wander as it would, he’d fallen in to bed without getting a good look at the room. The pink quilted bedspread and large tea rose patterned sheets reminded him of his granny’s house. Under the window was an old fashioned kidney shaped dressing table with a matching tea rose fabric skirt around it. As he stood up and moved towards it, he’d dumped his holdall in front of it the night before, he saw a tray full of old fashioned perfume bottles on one end and a simple wooden box on the other. When he flipped the lid of the box it was full of old costume jewellery. Doyle wondered who Bodie had rented the cottage from; it must have been cheap as everything seemed to be at least twenty years out of date. He hadn’t believed it the day before when Bodie had told him that there was no front door key, that no one locked their doors in the village, but then the whole place had that air of somewhere that time has simply passed by.

He stopped to look in on Bodie who was still fast asleep, before having a quick wash, pulling on some clean clothes and deciding to go for a walk in search of a newspaper and some more milk. With the newspaper and milk located and secured for the cost of some loose change and an obligatory twenty minute conversation with the owner of the village shop, he’d decided to stroll back through the churchyard and get a closer look at the old church.

Once there, he’d decided to take a look inside and was struck by the size and proportion of it for such a small village. Obviously Painswick had once been a very prosperous place. Inside, he’d bumped in to a member of the local WI who was doing flower arrangements and she happily toured him around the points of interest, whether he’d wanted to be toured or not. After excusing himself on the grounds of someone waiting on the milk for their tea, a dilemma universally understood, he’d wandered back out in to the churchyard with a new found interest in the multiple yew trees cluttering up the place, the architectural quality of them stemming from their carefully trimmed and densely packed tiny leaves. Unlike the one or two you normally saw in a churchyard there were masses of them, enough that it was still a bit chilly in the shadows they cast. He’d seen images of them everywhere too, on a poster at the chippy, postcards at the village shop, even a poorly done oil painting of them over the mantelpiece in Bodie’s cottage.

When he ran across a bench right in the middle of the churchyard that the sun was actually hitting, he slumped on to it, head tilted back, long legs stretched out in front of him, catching the early morning sun.

He really couldn’t believe he was still hanging about when he should have just handed over the envelope and left right away. That had obviously been what Bodie had been expecting him to do. The stupid bugger shouldn’t have left London, but then, like Bodie had said, who would have helped him if he’d stayed there?

He’d been steadfastly refusing to think about the trouble with Bodie for weeks but now, sprawled comfortably in the middle of the sunny churchyard, he couldn’t stop himself.

 

From the carpet, he looked up at Bodie in utter disbelief, wiping blood from his mouth as Bodie stood over him, hovering on his toes. Doyle tried to get over the shock, to get his hands under him and stand back up.

“Stay down Doyle or I’ll put you down again.”

Doyle stopped trying to get up. He’d never thought this would happen, never. He pulled a hanky out of his coat pocket and pressed it to his nose, careful not to make any sudden moves, accurately reading Bodie’s stance as being dangerous. Bodie looked angry and disappointed that he wasn’t going to get the excuse to hit him again.

He’d stalked out of his own flat, telling Doyle to be gone before he got back, slamming the door behind himself hard enough to knock a picture off the wall.

 

Fuck Bodie, he should just get on with his holiday plans, sun, sea, women and booze, now there was something worthy of Doyle’s time and attention. He walked briskly back to the cottage, primed to get a few things off his chest before leaving.

“Bodie, I want a word with...”

As he pushed open the front door and stepped in to the hall whatever he was going to say died in his throat. Bodie was halfway down the stairs, pyjamas rumpled, obviously painfully braced with both hands against the railing. His skin was too pale, even for Bodie, and Doyle could clearly see his arms tremble as he steadied himself.

“I thought you’d left already.”

Righteous anger died almost as fast as it had flared up, leaving a bitter taste behind in Doyle’s mouth.

“Come here, you bloody idiot.” Doyle went to help Bodie the rest of the way downstairs, steering him in to the kitchen and settling him at the small table. He put the kettle on, keeping up a steady stream of banter about the gossip from the shopkeeper, mentioning the WI woman, all while frying Bodie a big breakfast. He finally faced Bodie again over mugs of tea and plates full of fried eggs, fried sausages, fried bacon, fried tomatoes and even fried bread. If this didn’t help to put some meat back on Bodie’s bones he didn’t know what would.

Bodie finally pushed his empty plate away after mopping up the last of his egg and a remaining smear of HP sauce with a piece of bread.

“Thanks for all this Doyle, I feel better than I have in days.”

“That would be the fry-up talking.”

“Probably.” Bodie lifted his tea mug two handed and drank some more of it. “So where are you off to?”

“I’m planning on going down to Weston-Super-Mare, I hear it’s nice there, old pier, lots of beach, I’ve always liked the old seaside towns.” Doyle took a long slurp of his own tea. “I was thinking about hanging about here for a couple of days first though.”

“Doyle, you don’t have to—”

“Cowley would kill me if his blue-eyed boy died trying to get out of a bath unaided.”

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, I am, but how likely is it you’ll get time off like this again anytime soon. You should go on to Weston, soak up some sun, get your leg over—”

“I’ll still do all of that, I’m just pushing it back a couple of days so you can stop arguing about it. I’m staying, so shut up and drink your tea.”

“One more thing...”

“What now, Bodie?”

“Thanks, Ray.”

 

.


	6. Chapter 6

.

Sat out in the garden again, Bodie found himself mourning the loss of companionable silence between the two of them and yet wasn’t sure what might be a safe topic to talk about. He knew he should say something but—

“I walked back from the shop through the churchyard.”

Apparently Ray didn’t know what to talk about either.

“You did?” Bodie couldn’t remember when he’d last been this scintillating.

“Yeah, I did. I like the trees.” Apparently Doyle was also at his raconteur best.

“There’s a legend about them.”

“Yeah?”

Oscar Wilde would have been so proud to know the pair of them. “Yeah. There are only ninety-nine of them in the churchyard, they’re incredibly old trees. The legend says that if a hundredth tree were to grow the devil would pull it out.”

“So where’s the lesson in that one then?”

“What?”

“Country legends. There’s always a moral in them somewhere.”

Bodie stared longingly at Doyle’s profile, as he looked out across the overgrown garden unaware of Bodie’s close scrutiny. “That some things are just supposed to always be a certain way and nothing can ever be done to change that fact.”

“All about the bloody status quo then? Typical. If that’s the truth then I might as well retire from CI5 too, just wasting my time trying to make things better.”

“Don’t be daft, true believer you are, got the Don Quixote instinct, always looking for some windmill to tilt at. Not like me, all I ever believed in was loyalty and protecting your own.”

“Loyalty eh?” Doyle turned to look at him. “I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to put your faith in anyone, never know what you’re getting in to, do you? ...That kettle must be boiling by now, I’ll make us some more tea.”

As Doyle went in back in to the cottage, Bodie closed his eyes and let his mind drift.

 

Bodie had regained consciousness in the hospital but was still mustering the strength to open his eyes, when he’d realized that Doyle was talking to him.

“I’ve got faith in you Bodie, the bloody doctors say you might not recover, that they’ve done all they can do but they don’t know you like I do, you bloody stubborn git.”

He could feel Doyle’s hands gently brushing his right forearm, probably the one undamaged spot available to touch.

“It’s my fault, I should have found you sooner, should have put a bullet between McAllister’s eyes the moment I saw him.” Doyle’s fingers slowed down in to something approaching a caress. “Wake up, Bodie.”

 

“D’you hear me? Here’s your tea.”

Bodie blinked at Doyle, silhouetted by the sunlight. Yeah, he could remember when Doyle cared. Doyle sat back down.

“Look, I’m sorry I said that, it’s all water under the bridge now.”

Bodie was amazed. Doyle never shrugged anything off that fast.

“What are you planning on doing now you’ve retired? You could settle down somewhere quiet like this, raise some roses, bet you’d be a big hit with the housewives at the flower shows.” Doyle made direct eye contact for the first time since they’d moved out to the garden. “Less you’re planning on becoming a merc again?”

So that’s what Ray thought of him now. “That’s all behind me.”

“Is it? How would I know? I don’t really know anything about you at all, do I?”

So Ray hadn’t really shrugged it off and perhaps he still cared about what happened to Bodie after all. “You know me, Ray.”

“Guess I do, as well as I need to.” And just like that, Doyle was relaxed looking again.

Bodie stared down at his hands, reaching and pulling his shirt cuffs as low as they would go.

“Right, I think you’re getting maudlin, too much time shut up away from everything. The woman at the village shop told me I should visit Bourton-On-The-Water while I’m staying here. I’m told it’s very suitable for OAPs and invalids so I’m taking you there tomorrow. If you’re good, I’ll even buy you an ice-cream.”

 

.


	7. Chapter 7

.

The drive from Painswick to Bourton was a surprisingly pleasant one, a beautiful new view of pale honey coloured stone cottages nestled against a backdrop of rolling green hills lurking around every bend in the road. The woman at the shop had warned him that the village itself was surrounded by a river, accessible only by a series of small foot bridges and a shallow ford and that everyone parked in the big car park at the other end of the village. As he slowly drove down the small road by the river he could see that she’d also been right about the crowd, young families feeding ducks, OAPs and camera bedecked tourists.

Doyle overruled Bodie’s strongly worded protests and dropped him near an empty bench on the footpath by the river before going to park the car. As an added insult to Bodie’s pride, Doyle shoved a bread bag with several slices of bread in it into his hands and told him to sit down and feed the ducks until he got back

“It’s one way you might attract the birds.”

It took Doyle a while to get back to Bodie. He’d had to drive out a little further to find a car park not already overflowing with tourist coaches and then had to navigate around the slow moving tourist groups on the narrow footpaths.

Doyle somehow wasn’t in the least bit surprised to see Bodie sharing the bench with a very attractive young woman.

“Cathy Jackson, I’d like you to meet Ray Doyle, my...” Bodie’s voice petered off like he wasn’t sure how to finish his sentence.

“I’m his nursemaid. It’s not safe for him to be out on his own. Nice to meet you, Cathy.”

“Grrrrrrrrrr!”

Doyle was startled to feel a little hand clutch at his knee and looked down to see a small boy gripping him with one hand, the bread bag Doyle had left with Bodie clutched in his other.

“Robert, come here, leave the nice man alone.” Cathy put out her arms and the little boy went to her, still growling. “Bodie was nice enough to let Robert have the bread to feed the ducks, although he spends more time chasing them than anything. He hasn’t been quite the same since we took him to the Natural History Museum, thinks he’s a dinosaur. I’m hoping it’s just a phase.”

“I’m sure it is.”

Cathy stood up and led Robert over to the ducks.

Ray looked down at Bodie. “Got to find a Gents, the one at the car park was out of order.”

“Up that way.” Bodie pointed to a lane on the other side of the nearest footbridge. “Second street on the left.”

On his way across the footbridge Doyle stopped to look down at the river. It was only about a foot deep, the water was clear and he could see the pebbles at the bottom and even what appeared to be some small trout. In sharp contrast to the London he and Bodie inhabited the place was like a postcard of what Cowley liked to tell them they were working to protect although the smell of roses and lavender was actually very strong as he walked past the cottage gardens on the way to the Gents.

 

Once Doyle returned, Cathy reluctantly said goodbye and left with the still growling Robert. He could tell the young mother had enjoyed flirting with Bodie, it was there in the extra spring in her step as she’d left. Doyle sat down on the bench next to Bodie.

“You were right, Ray.”

“Always am.” Doyle slouched down in to a more comfortable position. “What about this time?”

“That the bread would help me attract birds.”

Doyle groaned as Bodie sniggered. It was the most Bodie like sound Doyle had heard out of him since he’d arrived at the cottage.

“It’s beautiful here, so unspoiled.”

“Apart from the coaches full of tourists.”

“Well, there’s that of course but the river’s so clear, even got some fish in it and you should see the gardens up the other side of it.”

“...D’you know they play football in it?”

“In what?”

“The river Windrush, once a year, they’ve been playing six aside football in it once a year since medieval times.”

“Give over.”

“No, it’s the truth. A big crowd always gathers and of course the players try to make sure a bunch of the spectators get just as wet as they do. Right bunch of nutters, but it’s all good clean fun.”

“Christ Bodie, where d’you get that one, out of a Christmas cracker?” Doyle stared harder at the shallow river, trying to imagine it. “How d’you know about it anyway?”

“...Cathy told me while we were sitting here.”

Doyle stood up. “Well I’m hungry mate, so I know you’ve got to be.” Doyle stuck out an arm and Bodie took it to get up from the bench.

“They do a good lunch at The Old New Inn.”

“Let me guess, Cathy told you. Anyway, which is it, Old or New?”

“Both. It’s called The Old New Inn, always has been.”

“Don’t do anything by halves around here, do they?”

“Let’s hope that’s true of the beer at least. I can have a few today and I think it would help my muscles relax a bit.”

They ordered two Double Gloucester ploughman’s lunches and a couple of pints of Donnington’s, before taking it outside to the beer garden where they watched OAPs playing skittles.

“After we’re done here, we could tour the model village if you like.”

“What you going to suggest next Doyle, touring some castles? I’m just a bit battered at the moment, not past it.”

“Would have thought you’d like castles, an ex-military man like you. Sudeley Castle’s nearby, saw a garden tours poster about it at the village shop. Lady Jane Grey lived there for a while and I know you have an interest in pretenders.”

Bodie stood up so fast even Doyle winced on his behalf as he saw pain flash across Bodie’s face but Bodie rallied fast and left the table, walking back towards the river as fast as he could go. Doyle trailed after him. He wouldn’t say he was sorry to Bodie because he wasn’t sorry. Not even close to it. What he was, in fact, was angry, angrier than he’d been with anyone in years. It came as a surprise to realize he felt anything that strongly about Bodie anymore. But what was he going to say to Bodie now, it wasn’t like he could just leave him here. He didn’t realize Bodie had stopped and turned around until he almost walked in to him.

“Look, Doyle, I’ll just sit in the sun, haven’t been out amongst people in far too long, still not really ready to deal with them. Go and look at the model village, it’s of Bourton itself and who knows if you’ll ever come back here again.”

Doyle casually hung around in front of one of the tourist shop windows, trying to look like he was thinking of buying something until he could see that Bodie had made it back safely to the same bench they’d been sitting on earlier. Then he decided he would go and look at the model village, that perhaps what he and Bodie needed most right then was a little time apart from each other.

He bought his ticket and went through the turnstiles and in to the village. It was an odd place to be, looming over scale models of the houses he’d just seen, it even had a miniature river running through the middle of it. It wasn’t the models themselves that were so unsettling though, it was being surrounded by families, dads doing the predictable giant or Godzilla bit for photographs, their kids running up and down and bending down to peer through the houses’ windows. There was a real sense of belonging with these families. Doyle didn’t have anything like that, his life more like the model village, looking at first glance like the real thing, only really smaller and meaner.

He’d left after only ten minutes but had been reluctant for some reason for Bodie to know it, and so he went to lean against an old oak tree on the edge of the green, just looking at the river. He wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all himself. He was watching Bodie. He was too thin, bearded and his longer hair was wavy now but despite how much Doyle missed that well-fed, well-groomed... sleekness Bodie had always had, it was the word that always came to mind when Doyle thought of Bodie, “sleek”, he was still handsome and still held an attraction for him though it was difficult to admit it. The fact that Bodie was slowly and with great relish eating a 99 didn’t help any either as Bodie’s tongue swirled around the ice-cream. No, he didn’t like Bodie anymore, didn’t want him anymore, didn’t lo— didn’t want him, but he was still an attractive bastard.

 

Doyle had always been attracted to men as well as women but had been smart enough to realize that it would have been suicide to admit it where he grew up. It had been fine really, he’d dated girls and had no sexual encounters with men at all outside of his fantasies until after he’d left home and moved down to London. Even then it hadn’t been anything more than a few illicit hand jobs and blow jobs until one drunken night when a mate had cheerfully bent over for him and shown him the ropes. Then there’d been no stopping him for a few months of living dangerously, it’d been a bit like being a teenager with rampant hormones again, before the same mate had talked some sense in to him and he’d learned to exercise some restraint and better judgement.

It hadn’t been wise to pursue it any more as a copper and it had been all right. He hadn’t met anyone else who’d tempted him to cross the line again until he’d met Bodie. It hadn’t just been Bodie’s looks although Bodie was definitely Doyle’s type, but if it had just been that he could have shrugged it off and let it go, he’d worked with other blokes he’d been attracted to without wanting to fuck them. It was the partnership, the friendship and the fact that his gut told him that Bodie was equally attracted to him, the way he’d catch Bodie looking at him, the way he found excuses to touch Ray, ruffling his hair or groping his bum on the stairs. Even then, if he hadn’t fallen in love with the sleek bastard... no, he wasn’t going to think about that, his lack of good judgement in falling for Bodie.

The night it had all gone wrong they’d been out on a date with a couple of girls from the Ministry. The evening hadn’t been going very well, mainly due to how moody Doyle had been. That was the same day that Ray had finally admitted to himself that he was in love with Bodie and after that the date had just felt like a sad farce.

They’d been given the night off, not that it really meant anything when you worked for CI5, and HQ had called the restaurant saying Cowley wanted Bodie to come in to consult because of his SAS connections. Bodie had left after making some bad taste jokes to Doyle about his bedding both of the girls. After they’d finished dinner, Doyle had offered to give them a lift home and end the evening prematurely instead of going dancing. He could tell they were actually relieved, they’d been enjoying his company so little.

He’d decided to go over to Bodie’s place and wait for him and had been drinking some of Bodie’s beer when he walked in three hours later. Bodie had been surprised that he wasn’t tucked up with both the girls or at least with his own date. That’s when Ray had noticed that Bodie had a gauze pad taped to the side of his neck. Doyle had been unsteady on his feet as he’d lurched to them, and reached out to rest his hand on the undamaged side of Bodie’s neck.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Unless gauze pads have become a new fashion in the last few hours they don’t stick one of these on your neck for nothing.”

“Leave it, Ray.” Bodie brushed Doyle’s hand from his neck. “It’s nothing, just a little reminder to keep my head down.”

Bodie had stepped back a bit to increase the distance between them but it didn’t work as Ray had immediately crowded in again.

“What. Happened?”

“I was chasing a bloke, went over a wall without looking first. He had a gun, made a lucky shot that was luckier for me as it just grazed my neck. Still got him though. Told you it was nothing.”

Through a haze of beer fumes Doyle had realized that Bodie might have died doing something stupid and that he’d have never had the chance to tell Bodie how he felt about him. That’s when he’d stepped forward and kissed Bodie, leaning in to him for support. Bodie had wrenched free from Doyle’s tight hold on his polo neck jumper before taking a step backwards and punching him. Doyle had ended up on the carpet, holding his mouth.

“Stay down Doyle or I’ll put you down again. I’m not some bloody poof, always had my suspicions about you though, too bloody flexible by half. Still, never thought you’d try it on with me, thought we were mates, thought I could trust you at my back.”

Doyle could hear how angry Bodie was, oddly enough, in how quietly Bodie had spoken, like all of his energy was going in to stopping himself from tearing Doyle apart with his bare hands.

“Sorry mate, had a bit too much to drink, didn’t mean to...” Doyle’s words died as Bodie had stepped towards him again, fists tightening at his side.

“Save your breath, Doyle. Bodie’s not gay, never was.”

Bodie had stalked out of his own flat, telling Doyle to be gone before he got back. He slammed the door behind himself hard enough to knock a picture off the wall.

 

Doyle could almost laugh at himself now for how upset he’d been at the time, how much he’d wished he’d never tried to kiss Bodie and worried that things would never be the same between them again. He must have played that scene over in his head a million times, burning it in to his memory. The thing was, when he kissed Bodie he could have sworn that just for a minute Bodie was kissing him back. Doyle pushed off the tree he’d been leaning on, wiping off the back of his jeans with his hands. As if any of it mattered now. He walked back over to Bodie.

“Did you enjoy the Model Village?”

“Yeah got to feel how Cowley must feel most days.”

Bodie grinned up at him, a hint of chocolate to the side of his lips. “D’you want an ice-cream?”

“No, not now. You stay here. I’ll go and get the car. Have to get you home, wouldn’t want you to miss your bedtime.”

 

.


	8. Chapter 8

.

He was running through the bush, his breath harsh and ragged. They were under fire and he couldn’t see where it was coming from but he was putting all of his effort in to trying to keep up with the man running in front of him. The man glanced back over his shoulder and he was stunned to see it was Doyle grinning back at him, before Ray turned to face forward again, sticks snapping around them, plants dragging at their combat gear as they ran onwards. There was a sudden explosion in front of him, a land mine hurling Doyle in to the air as he instinctively ducked and took cover. In the strange lull that followed, his ears still ringing, he ran over to the body, not caring if someone shot him. He turned it over to see not Doyle but Andy’s face. The air shimmered and the body was face down again. He fought the urge but was powerless to stop himself from turning the body over again, this time seeing himself. Caught in a loop, he was forced to turn the body over again only to see that the face had been blown off by the explosion.

Bodie woke up gasping for breath, groping wildly at the bedside table in the dark, before finding the little book with the leaf ribbon bookmark and clutching it to his chest, hunching over it.

“You all right Bodie?” Doyle’s hand was reaching for the light switch.

“No. Please. Don’t turn the light on.”

“All right.” They could see each other anyway, in the moonlight filtering through the net curtains, as Doyle walked across the room to stand beside his bed. “You were screaming the place down... Would you like a glass of water?”

Bodie’s throat felt hoarse and he nodded.

“I’ll be right back.”

Bodie drank the water slowly, drinking his fill of the sight of Doyle sleep tousled and completely relaxed, despite being dressed in only his briefs.

“Another nightmare about McAllister?”

Bodie nodded, it was easier than trying to explain the truth, wasn’t sure that Doyle would understand, wasn’t sure he understood it completely himself.

“What’s in the book?”

“It’s poetry. Keats.”

“You’re clutching it like a little kid clutches a teddy bear.”

“Belonged to someone I— love this book.”

“Then if you’re sure you’re all right, I’ll leave the pair of you to it. Don’t get any paper cuts in nasty places, mind.”

“I’m all right now. Thanks for the water. ‘Night, Doyle.”

Bodie slid slowly back down in to his bed, the book still clutched to his chest. Andy had given it to him. Someone he loved.

 

“You’ve got it all wrong Billy, life’s got to be about more than just this.”

“What’s the point, I know I’m going to die young, never make those ‘old bones’ McAllister’s always talking about.”

“It’s not how a man dies that matters, it’s how a man lives.” Andy had turned and smiled at Bodie, teeth gleaming white in his sunburned face, beautiful in the way that comes from being able to see possibility even in the human sewer they were currently living in. He tapped Bodie’s arm with the book in his hand. “Take Keats here, he was dead at twenty-five from Tuberculosis, he knew he was going to die young and painfully but look at the poetry he left us.”

“Poetry’s a load of old bollocks.”

“No mate, you’ve got it all wrong. Life’s got to be about more than mere survival else what’s the point in going on? No, you read Keats here, you can read, right Billy?”

“Fuck off, Andy—”

“I’ll take that as a yes. You read Keats here and then tell me it’s a load of bollocks.”

“Don’t have to, already know, don’t I?”

“Don’t be like McAllister and the others, Billy. You’re young. You’ve still got time to decide who you’re going to be. I know you could have only come here ‘cos you think the die is cast but it isn’t, there’s still time. Don’t just survive, choose who you’re going to be.”

 

.


	9. Chapter 9

.

Over breakfast, Doyle could tell that Bodie was still shaken up from the night before. He was also quite sure he knew what the book shaped object was in Bodie’s dressing gown pocket. When Bodie finally murmured that he didn’t feel very well and thought he’d spend the day napping in the back garden Doyle’s first impulse was to push him to do more. He’d been amused to find out from the chatty village shop keeper that a nearby village was considered one of the most beautiful in England despite being named Lower Slaughter and he’d planned to drag Bodie to it for a traditional cream tea just to listen to him complain about not being old yet, while still eating his own weight in scones.

“You should go for a walk Ray.”

“What?” Doyle had been distracted by his own thoughts, imagining for some odd reason Bodie with clotted cream smeared on his nose.

“A walk. The countryside’s beautiful around here. If I were up to it I’d already be packing a rucksack.”

Doyle thought about arguing and insisting on his original plan but he had to admit that the idea appealed. It had been months since he’d got out of London and then he’d only been as far as Brighton.

“It’s not a bad idea. Perhaps Mrs. Hammond could point out—”

“No need, I’ve been here before. There are a few particularly good spots not far from here. You could try over by Slad, there are some nice footpaths and the Woolpack Inn does a nice lunch. You might even bump in to Laurie Lee, he practically lives at the end of the bar there.”

“You mean _the_ Laurie Lee?”

“Yeah, him. It’s where he grew up. Buy him a pint or two and he’ll talk your ears off.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You might try Cranham then. It’s only about 6 miles drive up the A46 and you can park near the Royal William, another nice pub. You can even get on to The Cotswold Way from there although you might want to pace yourself. It’s a 102 miles long but you don’t have do it all in one day.”

 

As Doyle parked the car and got his first view out across the valley he knew Bodie’s suggestion had been a good one. He’d offered to hang about and help Bodie take another bath but Bodie had said again that he just wanted to doze in the garden and after making sure that Bodie knew there was stuff to make a sandwich and promising to be back in time to make him some dinner, Doyle had set out. He looked quickly at the piece of paper on which Bodie had shakily written directions for him, he didn’t want to stop and think about how long it had taken for Bodie to move the pencil, before shoving the piece of paper in to his pocket and setting out down the valley.

Once past the first style he was surprised to find himself in a field of sheep, even more surprised to have a border collie run up to him and stop dead, sitting down about five feet away from him. He made encouraging noises and stretched out his hand but couldn’t coax the dog in to coming any closer. As he walked on down the field the dog became his shadow, stopping whenever he did and maintaining the same distance. He realized when he got to the bottom of it that he’d veered off the track and missed the style but scrambled easily over the stone wall which hadn’t shifted beneath him at all, remarkable given that it was dry stone walling, each stone fitted expertly against the one next to it without benefit of mortar of any sort. It did, however, leave white limestone dust on his jeans which he stopped to wipe off. As he did so, he saw the dog turn back towards its flock.

“Good job mate, I’ll recommend you to Cowley.”

The dog turned to look at him cocking his head, before facing forward again and trotting on, head and tail held high.

Doyle hiked on towards the floor of the valley, climbing over a couple of more styles and passing through a kissing gate as he crossed the stone walls that snaked across the valley dividing it in to fields. The next field over held so many rabbits it looked like it was carpeted with them and he was impressed again by the dog’s devotion to his job that he wasn’t busy chasing them. Yet when he reached the field himself there wasn’t a single rabbit to be seen gone so swiftly that he wondered if he might have just imagined them. In the floor of the valley was a little pebbled stream and some village kids with nets fishing for sticklebacks. He was reminded again that he wasn’t in London as the kids crowded around him showing him the sticklebacks they already had in a bucket.

“Where you from then, mister?” Asked the little boy who’d offered the bucket.

“London.”

“Then what you doing here?”

From the way one of the older girls, probably about twelve years old Doyle thought, moved to snatch none too gently at the little boy’s arm Doyle guessed she was the boy’s older sister.

“Sorry mister, Tommy’s got the manners of a pig.”

“That’s what my gran says too.”

Ray tried not to smile at the obvious pride in the boy’s voice.

“I’m just going for a walk.”

The little boy struggled loose from his sister’s grip and turned to point at the hill on the other side of the valley. “If you go up there and look to your left you can see a Fairy Ring.”

“You might like it, mister.” It was the sister again. “Mum says all the Londoners think it’s quaint.” She ducked her head, too shy to meet his eyes and said “She says that if you look at it and wish hard enough you’ll meet your true love.”

“Well then, thanks for telling me, I better go and take a look.” He said goodbye to the kids, carefully handing back the small bucket and suggesting gently that they might want to return the sticklebacks to the stream before they went home. He headed up the opposite side to the valley.

A hard, uphill, thirty minutes walk later, having had to skirt several immense blackberry patches and the edge of a field of blooming bright yellow rapeseed, Doyle could feel sweat sticking his shirt to his back, a few damp curls sticking limply to his face. He flopped down on the grass close to the tree line at the top of the hill and unbuttoned the last couple of buttons on his shirt, throwing it carelessly on top of the small rucksack he’d dropped by his side. He thought about it for a minute and then stripped off his t-shirt too, exposing his skin, relishing the feel of the unseasonably warm weather against his chest and back. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been like this before the end of May.

He opened the rucksack and pulled out an already diluted bottle of orange squash. He would have liked to have just brought some water with him but had found the hard limestone water at the cottage too unpleasant tasting to want to drink it on its own. As it was, the squash was a little cloudy. As he screwed the lid back on the bottle and then leaned backwards on his elbows, legs sprawled out in front of him, he looked left as instructed by Tommy only to see the biggest Fairy Ring he’d ever seen. It was clearly visible from miles away. He was old enough to know it was just the product of a huge underground fungus but it was easy to see how superstitions might have grown up around it. He thought of what Tommy’s sister had said and resolutely turned to look at the other side of the valley, watching the shadows of fast moving clouds chase across the hillside. He lay back all the way in the grass, looking for shapes in the clouds.

He really couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed, only the sound of wood pigeons cooing in the tree line disturbing the peace. He found himself wondering if Bodie might stay here now he was retiring and caught himself smiling at the thought of Bodie propping up the end of the bar at The Woolpack telling tales of his glory days in CI5. He just couldn’t imagine it, Bodie liked The Smoke more than he did, craved the energy of London. He found himself thinking again about what had brought Bodie here before, deciding quickly that it had to be some bird of Bodie’s that had fixed it up. It was just the sort of place that birds liked to visit on a Bank Holiday weekend. Still, the thought of Bodie retiring gave him pause for thought. He turned the thought over and over in his head, surprised to find he didn’t like the idea. Not that he wanted to work with Bodie anymore but he admitted, reluctantly, that the squad wouldn’t be quite the same without him. No, Bodie had made it very clear to Cowley that he wouldn’t be coming back to CI5 even if he could. No, he probably would make a full recovery only to throw his life away in some godforsaken war zone working as a merc. Doyle didn’t realize how hard he was digging his fingers in to the grass until one of his fingernails caught on a small pebble. He should be glad he wouldn’t be there to see it. Living through Bodie _almost_ dying had been bad enough.

 

He remembered staying as close to Bodie as he could in the hospital without getting in the way of what seemed like a sea of doctors and nurses swarming over him. The doctors hadn’t been at all sure he’d wake up but Cowley had quietly and efficiently put the fear of god in to each and every one of them and they hadn’t stopped trying. Bodie had been practically unrecognizable he’d been beaten so badly and if Doyle hadn’t been the one that had found him he’d have never believed it was him.

They hadn’t even been working a case. The day before they’d finished up a successful, but really stressful, obbo and Cowley had surprised the hell out of them by giving them a couple of days off. Bodie had been excited about going to Brighton with his latest girlfriend and couldn’t stop talking about it, laying it on extra thick every time he’d realized Doyle could overhear him talking about it to one of the rest of the squad. They wouldn’t have even known anything had happened to Bodie until after the weekend but the girlfriend had been furious when Bodie had failed to pick her up and had called Doyle on the off chance that Bodie had been sent on another job and hadn’t remembered to tell her. Even then, Doyle had thought Bodie had changed his mind about her or perhaps had just overslept, but he’d gone over to Bodie’s flat to check. No Bodie. He’d checked Bodie’s laundry basket for the clothes he’d been wearing the day before and they weren’t there. Bodie’s flat wasn’t spotless by any means but he put a lot of money in to his clothes and looked after them.

That’s when he’d called Cowley. If an agent went out of town he was supposed to let HQ know and the note they had said Bodie was planning on going to Brighton with his girlfriend, no new message.

Doyle had been standing on the pavement outside Bodie’s flat, looking up and down the street, trying to decide where to start looking for him, when Bodie’s downstairs neighbour had been dropped off by her boyfriend. When Doyle asked her if she’d seen Bodie she’d laughed and said he might be sleeping it off at a mate’s house, as she’d seen a couple of them helping him in to a Ford transit and he’d looked really drunk, weaving about like his legs wouldn’t support him. Doyle had asked her more questions but all she could remember was that the blokes were medium height, medium build, dark haired and wearing camo jackets and jeans. All she could remember about the van was that it was a plain white transit.

He could still remember the chill setting in under his burning anger as Cowley had outlined briskly and logically what Bodie’s chances were. Given that they weren’t currently assigned to an obbo he felt there were only three possible conclusions to draw. One was that Bodie had been kidnapped and that they’d be receiving the kidnappers’ demands shortly... only Cowley didn’t make deals with kidnappers. Another one was that someone thought Bodie might have useful information in which case they’d keep him alive until they could pry it out of him. The last alternative was that someone wanted revenge, in which case Bodie was probably already dead.

They’d been looking for Bodie without success for three days, three long days during which Doyle had battled the thought that Bodie must be dead already, during which he hadn’t slept for more than an hour at a time and then only when his body had practically dropped in its tracks. Doyle was haunted by the fact that they hadn’t managed to get back to normal, or what passed for normal in their lives anyway, before Bodie had been taken. He’d hoped with time that they might be able to talk about it, that Bodie would stop being awkward around him, not even touching him anymore like he once had, no ruffling of his hair, no touches to his shoulders or back.

Then, they’d got a break. One of McAllister’s men had called CI5 HQ and tipped them off as to where Bodie was being held. He said he felt like he owed Bodie from their merc days, not enough to stop Bodie from being beaten for information but enough to call when he’d heard McAllister telling one of the other men that he was going to put a bullet through Bodie’s head that night. It had been torturous living through the next hour as Cowley had drawn up the rescue plan, his every instinct screaming at him to go in guns blazing and take back what was his.

 

Doyle jerked upright, hands digging in to the dirt again. He was shocked to remember the litany of “mine, mine, mine” that had thrummed through his mind, a constant backdrop as Cowley had outlined the plan to take the warehouse.

 

“Anson will be first in through the West door and then—”

“No.” Doyle looked up from one of the photographs of McAllister they’d been circulating around the squad.

Cowley had turned to look at Doyle. “No?”

“You can plan on sending Betty through the door first if you want, won’t make any difference ‘cos I’m going in first.”

Cowley, lips pressed together in a hard line, had looked Doyle over carefully. “Doyle will be first in through the West door and then...”

That settled, Doyle had made himself focus on the rest of the plan only because it was Bodie’s life at stake.

It had been a bloody op, McAllister’s men were good but the squad were better and fighting for one of their own. They were hampered by the fact that the warehouse had been divided into groups of smaller lock-ups and they’d had to stop and clear every one of them as they’d moved through, it being far too dangerous to potentially leave trained mercs at their back. Doyle had been working by the book, just clearing one small group of ten lock-ups when he’d spotted McAllister running into another group of lock-ups set 10 yards away across an open aisle. He hadn’t even hesitated, taking off after McAllister as fast as he could run, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt where he was going.

He’d rounded the corner of the last lock-up to see he was at the back wall of the warehouse, Bodie sitting on the floor in the gloom with his right hand obviously chained to the wall. McAllister was crouched behind him with a wicked looking knife held left-handed to Bodie’s throat.

“You must be Ray. Put the gun down pretty boy and kick it over here if you want your boyfriend to live.”

Doyle had barely heard him over the roaring in his ears “Bodie’s alive!” but in an instant he’d evaluated the situation, known he couldn’t shoot McAllister without killing Bodie and promptly ignored years of training as he dropped his gun. McAllister obviously wanted to bargain and Bodie was alive, that was all that was important at that moment.

As he’d watched, he seen McAllister’s right hand move to Bodie’s right wrist. Doyle’s eyes had been adjusting to the gloom and as he followed the movement of McAllister’s hand he’d been horrified to realize that Bodie’s hand was nailed to the wall, just as McAllister callously wrenched it free from the nail. Doyle hadn’t known what was worse, Bodie’s scream or the fact that the sound was so hoarse Bodie must have been screaming for days, his throat raw. McAllister transferred the knife to his right hand and dragged Bodie to his feet, keeping his body carefully in front of him.

“You shouldn’t have put your gun down, boy. I just needed time to finish this.”

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Doyle yelled “No!” and McAllister pulled his right arm back and then whipped it forward, Bodie stumbling and falling over clumsy feet right before the knife sunk home in his back. McAllister let go and Bodie dropped heavily to the floor.

McAllister was reaching for the gun in his belt when a shot rang out and he dropped, clutching at his right shoulder, his gun clattering on the ground. Doyle dimly heard Anson on his R/T saying that they needed an ambulance at the back of the warehouse and telling Doyle to see to Bodie, that he’d see to McAllister. Not that Doyle had needed telling. Bodie was lying on his right side, naked except for his underpants and so covered in dried and fresh blood Doyle couldn’t even begin to guess at the extent of his injuries. He found a strange comfort in Bodie’s laboured breathing. If he was breathing he was alive and Doyle babbled nonsense knowing just how comforting the sound of a friendly voice could be. He knew better than to move Bodie, too much chance of unintentionally doing more damage, so he settled for lightly running a comforting hand over the top of Bodie’s back, scared when his fingertips glanced over what felt like Rice Krispies forming under the skin.

“Anson, where’s that bloody ambulance?”

“It’s here, Doyle, it’s here.”

 

At the hospital Doyle had to wait for five hours as the doctor’s worked on Bodie, to finally find out the full extent of his injuries. Even then, the doctor in charge had handed Cowley a list which Cowley had scanned and then handed straight over to a grateful Doyle, who knew he had no legal right to know but was prepared to hold a gun to the doctor’s head to find out. It didn’t make for pretty reading: a broken ulna and radius of the left arm, a puncture wound to the right hand due to a nail being hammered through it, cracked ribs, multiple contusions and multiple cuts, many of which had needed stitches. Doyle had almost punched the doctor at his next words, only Cowley throwing an arm across his chest had held him back.

“Mr. Bodie’s a very lucky man.”

Doyle still grimaced at the memory.

The doctor wasn’t an idiot and after seeing the look on Doyle’s face he’d hastened to explain.

“After hearing your account of the stabbing, Mr. Doyle, I think this McAllister had meant to hit Mr. Bodie’s liver and that would have probably been fatal. Only Mr. Bodie’s stumbling caused him to hit the lung instead causing a pneumothorax, yes, I’d call him lucky.”

What Doyle had felt under his fingertips was air from the pleural space escaping in to the soft tissue. He knew he’d never eat Rice Krispies again.

The doctor had gone on to outline the course of treatment. Bodie would have a chest drain for the pneumothorax that would probably have to stay in for a couple of days and he would require two weeks of an antibiotics IV to ward off the high potential for infection. They would also be putting Bodie on morphine sulphate to manage the pain. If Bodie woke up, at a glower from Doyle the doctor had quickly amended that to _when_ Bodie woke up, they’d have to see about starting some at least limited rehab on his hand to head of potential mobility issues.

It had been two days before Bodie had woken up, if only briefly, screaming himself hoarse before they’d medicated him and put him under again. During those two days, Doyle had talked to him endlessly about anything and nothing and everything, never leaving his bedside except to make fast trips to the loo. He’d told Bodie how he felt about him, how he’d hoped they’d have a future together and how bad he’d felt that he’d miscalculated what Bodie felt and how he just wanted his best mate back.

 

Doyle lurched to his feet and dusted himself off before scooping up his t-shirt and putting it back on. He shoved his shirt in to the rucksack. He was angry with himself because of the memory of telling Bodie how he felt about him, even though Bodie never heard it. Angry for thinking himself in love with someone, with no knowledge of whom they really are. The person he’d been in love with simply didn’t exist.

By the time he’d marched quickly down the steep slope and up the other side of the valley, and then driven back to Painswick, he was fuming. He parked the car and realized he wasn’t ready to go back in to the cottage. He’d promised himself that he wasn’t going to let Bodie see how much it still bothered... _had_ bothered him at the time.

He’d decided to walk up to the High Street and have a pint at the pub he’d seen across the road from the church. He’d walked through the churchyard again, feeling himself calm down as he made himself concentrate on the sound of the birds singing and the gravel path crunching underfoot, the yew trees throwing those same cooling shadows again.

The High Street was lined with beautiful old Cotswold stone buildings, the limestone aged to a caramel coloured patina. He’d been amused when he’d first driven in to Painswick by the one lane road that wound between these old buildings, the flow of traffic controlled by a solitary traffic light at each end. The Falcon Inn was nestled in right across the street from the church.

Going inside the pub was like stepping back in time, the low beamed ceiling, old wood floors and whitewashed walls serving as a backdrop to polished horse brasses, framed prints of horses and hounds and men in hunting orange. The end of the room was dominated by a large open whitewashed fireplace not currently in use.

Leaning his elbows on the polished wood bar, one shoe propped up on the brass foot rail, he’d only managed his first few swallows off the top of a really good pint of bitter before he’d been drawn in to a conversation with the landlord and an old gent who was obviously a fixture at the end of the bar. He told them he was staying with a mate for a few days and that he’d never been to the Cotswolds before.

“He should go to the Cheese Rolling, Dave, it’s tomorrow.”

“So it is. Doesn’t seem five shakes since it were last on.”

“Cheese Rolling?” Doyle had the feeling that he was about to get his tourist leg pulled but he thought it might be entertaining.

“Yes, the Cheese Rolling, it be over Brockworth way, Cooper’s Hill. No one knows when it got started though there were that daft Prof staying here last year, no more sense than a cockerel chasing a pigeon, who insisted it were to honour the goddess of the spring at the bottom of the hill. He were from London too, come to think of it, and—”

“The Cheese Rolling?” Doyle interjected gently, sensing the conversation was about to veer seriously off track.

“Oh, right. It’s a bugger of a hill, Cooper’s Hill is, the gradient’s 1 in 2, 1 in 1 in places. They roll a big wheel of Double Gloucester cheese off the top and then people with more guts than sense chase it, most of them ending up arse over teacup and that’s if they’re lucky. A lot of them end up in hospital. Bloke from London called it a “rite of passage” and he got that right at least. Most of the local lads’ll run it when they’re young.”

“Me grandfather told me they used to have a bunch of strange competitions along with it” the old man at the end of the bar added. “Dancing for ribbons, wrestling for a belt, grinning through a horse’s collar to win a cake, dipping in a tub of water for oranges and apples, bobbing for penny loaves smeared in treacle and shin-kicking.” The old man smiled at the look on Doyle’s face. “In case you haven’t noticed there’s not much to do around these here parts, have to make our own fun, we do.”

The landlord turned to Doyle. “You could give it a go if you wanted. Anyone can sign up to run it though it helps if you’re a bit touched in the head.” The landlord reached for a pen and started to write on a beer mat “Here’s the directions to get there, even if you just want to watch it. Something to tell your mates about back in London.”

During the walk back across the churchyard, after a second pint, Doyle started to think it might not be a bad way to burn off some of his excess energy at that.

 

It took him an hour, over dinner, to talk Bodie in to agreeing to go with him, after showing him the directions on the beer mat.

“You go Doyle, it sounds like it’d be fun but I don’t think I’m up to it if the hill’s that steep.”

“It’s not like I’m suggesting that you run the course and anyway, how d’you know it’s too steep for you?”

“...Stands to reason, those blokes at the pub would hardly have called it dangerous if it wasn’t really steep.”

“Again, you’re not going to be running it.”

“It’s in the middle of a field. I don’t think I could stand for that long.”

“I’ll take a deck chair for you.”

“Then there’s the walk from where they park the cars—”

“I’ll drive you up the track and then park the car. I’m sure the cops on duty’ll take one look at you, look at my CI5 ID and let me do that, fallen hero and all that. It’s not like the cops need to know the truth.”

Doyle wished he’d bit his tongue as he saw Bodie’s face go white at that one.

“You should just go on your own Doyle and then you won’t have to think about me at all.”

Doyle managed to stop himself from blurting out _If only that were a bloody option._ “Look, you’re coming with me and that’s all there is to it. Surely you don’t want to miss the chance to see me break my bloody neck?”

Bodie’s head whipped up. “You’re going to run the hill?”

“Yeah, thought I might.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

 

.


	10. Chapter 10

.

Doyle had greeted Bodie with “bloody hell, you look like you’re on the run” as Bodie had put on dark sunglasses and a panama hat before leaving the cottage.

“Sod off Doyle, as long as I’ve been indoors for weeks now, I’m not sure how well my skin will handle sitting out in a field all day.”

Bodie was grateful that Doyle didn’t think to point out that he’d been sitting out in the garden for days.

Just as the landlord had told Doyle, the organizers had nearby fields roped off for parking but as Doyle had predicted the local cops were only too happy to let Doyle drive up the track to drop off Bodie closer to the hill once he flashed his CI5 ID. Doyle set up the chair for Bodie and then lugged the hamper out of the boot that Mrs. Hammond had forced on them when she’d heard of their plans. Not that they weren’t grateful for the tea and sandwiches. Doyle had gone to take the car back down the track leaving Bodie sitting staring up the slope of Cooper’s Hill. It looked like nothing so much as a green cliff face, half in shadow due to the steepness of the valley. There were crowds milling about composed mainly of family groups and some of seemingly good natured lads who were already having a few beers and slapping each other on the back. There were even a few of them done up in silly costumes. Bodie could see Superman, Batman and even a T.Rex from where he sat.

Doyle returned and drank deeply from the bottle of diluted squash in the hamper, his head tilted back. Bodie tried not to be too obvious about watching him. Doyle stripped his shirt off leaving him in a faded red t-shirt, the jeans with the patches on the bum that always caused Bodie’s breath to catch and white plimsolls. Bodie tried to make a joke about the danger of those jeans giving way or just getting ripped off him if Doyle tumbled the wrong way but his mouth was dry and he just couldn’t quite force the words out as he found himself thinking in all too vivid detail about Doyle with his jeans ripped off.

“What?” Doyle had obviously noticed Bodie was staring despite Bodie’s dark sunglasses. “You didn’t think I was going to wear my best clothes for this, did you?”

“How could you possibly tell the difference with the tat you wear?”

Doyle grinned and flashed two fingers at him before drinking some more squash.

A man dressed in a white butcher’s coat wearing a top hat bedecked with red, white and blue ribbons started walking through the crowd announcing that anyone who wanted to compete needed to go over to the main table so they could be assigned to a race. Doyle asked if Bodie needed anything and when Bodie shook his head, he walked over to the table. Bodie watched the progress of those patched jeans all the way over to the table where Bodie wasn’t at all surprised to see a couple of women talking to Ray within minutes. Some things never changed.

Doyle waved and smiled at Bodie, before pointing up the hill and heading up that way with the women. Bodie noticed that one of them had managed to casually slip her arm through Doyle’s like she needed a bit of help to walk up the hill. Bodie was shocked to realize that it was the first time that Doyle has genuinely smiled at him since the second time he’d woken up in the hospital, back when Doyle still cared about what happened to him.

 

That was all before Doyle’s visit to the hospital following CI5’s interrogation of McAllister. Doyle was known for losing his temper, burning fast and bright then calming down quickly but Bodie had still only seen him this angry a couple of times before and _never_ with Bodie, despite any of the stupid, dangerous and reckless things he’d ever done or tried to do. Doyle had been practically rabid, hands fisted at his side, the waste-paper basket and the bedside table had both felt Doyle’s wrath. Bodie knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he hadn’t been lying in a hospital bed already they’d have been picking pieces of him out of the room’s walls and carpet for weeks. Bodie would have almost been happier if Doyle had felt like he could have hit him, at least Doyle could have got some of it out of his system but instead he steamed, abused the furniture and muttered obscenities, the level of which Bodie had thought beyond even Doyle’s inventive mind.

Doyle had finally shouted “I’m asking for a new partner, someone I can trust. If I never set eyes on your fucking stupid face again it’ll still be too fucking soon.” He was also muttering to himself about how he couldn’t believe that he’d thought he had feelings for Bodie, as he walked across the room to the door although Bodie thought he wasn’t supposed to have heard that bit.

That was when Bodie had started planning how exactly he was going to word his resignation letter. After what the doctor had told him about his condition the last thing Bodie wanted was to be around Doyle anymore anyway.

He had no memory of his transfer from the hospital to the rehabilitation centre as they’d drugged him to spare him any pain during the trip. After only two weeks there though he’d known he had to get out. He wasn’t stupid. He had gritted his teeth and hung around just long enough to find out what he was supposed to do to get better, paying careful attention to the instructions of his physios. He’d been planning his escape when Anson had shown up with more of Bodie’s things for him from his flat and tracked him down in the centre’s garden.

“Sorry Anson, you must have drawn the short straw.”

“No straws needed.”

“Really?” Bodie had been surprised, sure that the rest of the squad would feel the same way that Doyle obviously did.

“We were all a bit shocked initially, I’ll give you that but it didn’t last long. The general feeling is that we know you from working with you and that’s good enough for us.”

“Thanks, mate.”

“Well, that and the fact that the Cow trusts you and that’s saying something. He probably fingerprinted his own mother to check for a criminal record before he was even out of nappies.”

Bodie tried to sound casual. “Remember that favour you owe me for covering for you on the Davis job?”

“Oh c’mon now Bodie, I—”

“Don’t worry it’s nothing major. I just want you to give me a lift to the railway station after I get my stuff together.”

“Cowley’ll kill me.”

“No he won’t. I’m not a prisoner here and Cowley knows I’m not coming back to the squad, he’ll probably be glad to be rid of me. I’ll send him my resignation letter.”

It took thirty minutes for Bodie to talk Anson in to it, thirty minutes of reminding him of favours he’d done for him over the years. In the end, Anson had agreed and they’d walked slowly back to Bodie’s room to get his things.

Bodie had opened his room door to find Cowley sitting on his bed, reading a file.

“There you are, Bodie. Anson, you can wait outside. Close the door after you.”

“What are you doing here?” Bodie couldn’t stifle the belligerence in his voice, freedom having been so close.

“Och, sit down man, before you fall down.”

Bodie had reluctantly lowered himself in to the only chair in the room while Cowley waited.

“I’ve been expecting your resignation and thought I’d make you tell me in person.”

“Then you want me to resign? I thought you would, once you’d had time to think about it.”

“Why? I _always_ knew, remember? It’s that hot headed partner of yours that—”

“Doyle’s all right.”

“Loyal to the last, eh Bodie?”

“Look, I’m resigning and that’s all there is to it. Doyle won’t work with me anymore and I don’t want to work with anyone else.” Bodie had thought he should add something else to convince Cowley he was serious. “I’ve never been injured this badly before, not sure if my bottle’s gone, I’m getting older anyway and I’m not sure I could make it past Macklin again...” Bodie’s voice petered off.

“Are you done?” Cowley fixed him with a steely eye. “I’ve read your medical records from cover to cover. None of your doctors see any reason why you shouldn’t make a full recovery if you’re not stupid and willing to work for it. I expect you to live up to your contract, to at least see if you could re-qualify. If you can’t, there are many other ways that someone with your experience could be beneficial to CI5. Your life’s not over yet, Bodie, so stop acting like it is.”

There was something in Cowley’s expression and tone, much more so than his actual words that had made Bodie think that Cowley knew everything that had happened to him and at least part of the resulting reality he had to deal with. Bodie wasn’t sure if he respected Cowley even more for that or whether he wanted to beat him senseless.

“I’ll think about it, Sir, but it’s highly unlikely I’ll come back to CI5.”

“As long as you’ll think about it, I’ll say no more for now.” Cowley stood up to leave. “I wish you a swift recovery, Bodie.” He opened the door. “Anson, you can come in now.”

Anson moved past him in to the room.

“Oh, and Anson?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Don’t drop Bodie at the railway station, drive him all the way out to Gloucestershire instead.” Cowley smiled for the first time since Bodie had entered the room. “Don’t stand there with your mouths hanging open, the pair of you. Bodie is going to meet with his doctors first to find out exactly what he needs to do and to get any prescriptions he might need and then you can be off. No CI5 agent is going to end up crippled due to his own stupidity on my watch.”

 

Bodie was snapped back in to the present by the Tannoy system as they announced the first race, for ladies only. Bodie watched as the man in the top hat started the cheese rolling and then the women started tumbling down the hill after it, most of them trying to slide down on their bottoms rather than running, except for a few brave souls who did try to run it and ended up tumbling arse over head. He noticed that the girl who’d linked arms with Doyle was one of the ones who were really trying to win. She ended up being second to the bottom of the hill but it was a very close thing. The woman who had won the race was holding the cheese triumphantly above her head, smiling broadly. When _Doyle’s girl_ , as Bodie was already starting to think of her, immediately ran over to congratulate the winner Bodie decided that he approved of her, not that his approval was necessary of course.

Bodie still didn’t know what he was going to do with the rest of his life but he did know it would comfort him to know that Doyle was happy and loved, the way he should be.

 

Bodie thought about being held prisoner, how McAllister had told the others that Bodie had valuable information they were going to force him to give them, but really the only thing on McAllister’s mind had been to make Bodie pay for Andy’s death. Andy had been one of those rare men that had brought out that sort of loyalty in everyone who knew him, even McAllister, whom Bodie was pretty sure would have skinned his own grandmother if the price had been right.

It had been brutal living through it, not just the beatings but how they’d taken the time to discuss what they were going to do to him next beforehand, so he had time to think about it, each session only stopping when he’d passed out. They were in no hurry, McAllister hadn’t wanted him to die too soon and escape him that way.

The only way Bodie had stayed sane and alive was thinking about Doyle having to deal with the guilt of finding him already dead or never finding him at all. He knew his Ray, knew how it would haunt him forever that guilt, particularly since that night a drunken Doyle had temporarily got his wires crossed and made a move on him.

The trouble was, the longer the beatings went on, the more creative they got and the more Bodie tried to remove himself mentally from it by concentrating on Doyle. He was forced to admit to himself that he had feelings for Doyle, that in fact he loved the awkward spikey bugger. He’d promised himself that if he survived, he’d tell Doyle how he felt about him. The stubborn hope that Doyle’s attraction to him might blossom in to deeper feelings and that they might be able to make a go of it had kept Bodie alive.

When he’d woken up in the hospital with Doyle hovering over him, whispering words of comfort, he’d been so bloody happy that it didn’t really bare thinking about, particularly given the condition he was in, but he’d known the overwhelming joy of finally feeling that he might be able to have it all. Bodie should have known better than that. He’d just never thought that Doyle would find out the truth although he’d known he’d hate him for it.

 

Not that it had turned out Bodie could have told Ray how he felt about him even if Ray had been in a more forgiving mood. Not now, not ever.

 

Bodie had been staring blindly up the slope, barely aware of the passage of time and the bodies tumbling earthward and often almost straight in to ambulances but now instinct, the instinct that had always existed between the two of them, made him re-focus in time to see Doyle join the line of men at the top of the hill. He watched the race official release the cheese and then signal for the runners to go. Doyle took off like he was spring loaded, looking more like he was flying than running until he tumbled over for the first time. For a moment, Bodie thought he’d stay down but Doyle managed to break out of it and regain his feet before spreading his stance and digging his heels in, leaning back more as he descended the rest of the slope. For Bodie, it was a foregone conclusion, barring Doyle breaking his stupid neck, and while it seemed to take forever, looking almost like it was in slow-motion to Bodie, it was no time at all before Doyle was standing at the foot of the hill, hoisting the cheese about his head, mud caked across his face and his t-shirt and mottled all over his jeans. Of course _Doyle’s girl_ was the first to reach him, throwing herself at him and kissing him, almost knocking Doyle over with the force of her enthusiasm. Doyle looked over her head, grinning from ear to ear at Bodie who pantomimed applauding to spare his damaged hand, unable to wipe the answering grin from his own face. Bodie was amused to notice that while a few other women stepped up to kiss Doyle, _Doyle’s girl_ kept a tight hold on his arm. Obviously she’d found a prize she liked far better than a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese.

The official stepped up take a picture of Doyle with the cheese before shaking his hand. Doyle then trotted over to Bodie, the girl trailing close behind him.

“How’s that then?”

“Very impressive Ray, thought you were going to just jump to the bottom there for a moment. You realize of course that if you’d broken anything doing that Cowley would have rung your neck.”

“Not going to think about Cowley, I’m on holiday.” Doyle slung his arm across the girl’s shoulders. “Bodie, this is Lisa. She says that it’s tradition that all the winners go for a pint at The Cheese Rollers Inn in Shurdington, it’s just down the road.”

“Well you won, so I suppose that’s where we’re going.”

 

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	11. Chapter 11

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The Cheese Rollers Inn was crowded, the crowd spilling over on the pavement outside, but with his winning wheel of cheese tucked under one arm and given Bodie’s obviously frail condition the crowd had cheerfully split to allow them inside, an impromptu cheer going up for Doyle as he walked through them.

Given that Doyle had felt like he’d had to stay for the last few races and that it was already 8:00pm, Bodie had been flagging fast so Doyle had taken a minute to find a corner table for Bodie to sit at before bringing him the half of shandy he’d asked for. When Doyle had gone to sit down with him Bodie had shooed him away to the bar saying it was his due as the conquering hero and Doyle had been happy to obey. They even propped his cheese up for him behind the bar so he didn’t have to keep track of it.

It seemed like everyone in the pub had come up to pat Doyle on the back, all offering to buy him a drink most of which he’d felt compelled to turn down as he still had to drive back to Painswick. Lisa was still hanging all over him and he would have fancied his chances if there’d been any way to leave Bodie to his own devices.

It had probably been an hour since he’d taken Bodie the shandy and at that thought he turned to look back at Bodie’s table which he was now sharing with Mrs. Hammond and a younger man. As he watched he saw Bodie nodding at something Mrs. Hammond had said. The young man got up and came over to Doyle, introducing himself as Mrs. Hammond’s son, David.

“My mother wanted to watch you run the hill and says to congratulate you. She also says that as you appear to have acquired a new friend we’d be happy to give Will a lift home.” David was wearing a rather resigned _everyone just does what my mother says_ look.

Doyle had turned again to look at Bodie who had just got to his feet. Doyle made eye contact with him and raised a querying eyebrow, trying to make sure that it was all right with him. In return, Bodie smiled and nodded. He then turned slowly to the wall by the pub’s back door and tapped a picture on the wall, before shrugging in a self-conscious manner and walking out of the pub behind Mrs. Hammond. David said a quick goodbye and followed them.

The crowd was still surging around Doyle and the other winners and it was another twenty minutes before he could excuse himself to go to the Gents. He’d worked his way across the room, having his hand shaken and his back slapped before he’d been able to make it over to look at the picture Bodie had pointed out on the back wall. The picture was in a frame screwed to the wall and had a plaque that said “The youngest winner of the men’s cheese rolling contest.” The picture was of a boy of about fourteen hoisting the cheese over his head and grinning broadly. It was unmistakeably Bodie although it took a moment for Doyle to really register the fact. The name plate was missing and it looked like it had been for quite a while, the indented bare spot on the frame where the name plate had been dark and aged.

It hadn’t taken him long to make his excuses to Lisa. The barman had had to remind him to take his cheese with him, forgotten in his haste to get to Bodie.

As Doyle drove back to Painswick, he remembered what he’d found out during McAllister’s interrogation. He hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but in the end had been forced to accept the unpleasant facts.

 

Doyle had gone in to work that morning happier than he’d been in years. Bodie was alive. Bodie was alive, the doctors thought he’d make a complete recovery and _nothing_ else mattered. Cowley had sent him to pick up Stuart in Brixton, but after waiting an hour for him, one of Stuart’s snitches had shown up with a note saying he wouldn’t be ready until the next morning. Doyle had called it in and then headed back to HQ as Cowley was in a meeting with the Minister and couldn’t be disturbed for further instructions. That’s when he’d found out why he’d been sent to Brixton in the first place. Jax had been the unlucky squad member who’d got to tell him that Anson and Murphy were interrogating McAllister, who’d been released from the hospital. Jax, and then Anson and Murphy, had told him that Cowley had left express orders that Doyle wasn’t to take part in the interrogation but when Doyle had insisted on listening in they’d agreed to let him, feeling pretty bloody angry themselves after seeing Bodie’s condition.

He’d stood outside the door to the interrogation room that Anson had obligingly left ajar and listened as McAllister had answered all of Anson’s initial questions about himself, his men and who he’d worked for in Africa.

“What brought you back to London?”

“I heard my brother was here, didn’t believe it of course but I still had to see for myself.”

“And why was that?”

“I was sure he’d died years ago.”

“So a joyous family reunion then?” asked Murphy.

“Hardly, turns out I was right the first time. It just stirred up all the old grief and anger. I should have remembered that feeling anything that strongly makes you stupid. Still, blood’s thicker than water as they say.”

“Is this to do with Bodie then?” Anson leaned forward. “Is he the one you blame for your brother’s death?”

“William Andrew Philip Bodie is dead.”

“That’s where you’re wrong mate.” Doyle could hear the smirk in Murphy’s voice. “He’s recovering nicely in hospital.”

“And I tell you he’s dead. I should know.”

Doyle was through the door, dragging McAllister to his feet and punching him before he’d even had time to think about what he was doing.

“You worthless bastard, you almost managed it!”

Murphy inserted himself between Doyle and McAllister, now sprawled on the floor, holding Doyle back as Anson none too gently helped McAllister back to his feet and pushed him back in to his chair. McAllister rubbed left-handed at his jaw, his right arm still in a sling.

“I’m not talking about your little boyfriend, Billy. I’m talking about my little brother, William Andrew Philip Bodie.”

The other three men had all turned to stare at McAllister, Doyle forgetting for the moment that he’d been trying to push past Murphy.

“Well, half-brother really, same dad, different mothers. Not that either one of us got the bastard’s last name though.”

Doyle wanted to argue, wanted to punch the words right out of McAllister’s mouth but there was something about the way he was staring off in to the middle distance that suggested he was remembering something real.

“He was a good kid, was Andy. Never went by William, it was our dad’s name and he hated him almost as much as I did and with twice the reason. Andy was the only good thing our dad ever did and that was only by accident. He’d had no business being a merc, didn’t have the temperament or the stomach for it and hung about more than anything. He’d only wanted the chance to get to know me better, his only brother. Course Andy had a nasty habit of picking up waifs and strays like your mate Billy, right nasty piece of work he was. You could look in that boy’s eyes and know he was born to be a killer.”

“You mean—”

“The murdering bastard you call Bodie.” McAllister cut Murphy off. “Billy. Billy Campbell the last time I saw him, but he’d been going by Billy Davis the year before that when I’d first met him, so who really knows? I was devastated when I heard that Andy had died in a fight along with Billy and went to see for myself. They’d already buried what was left of Billy, or so they told me, and Andy’d had his face blown off, I could only identify him by the engraved St. Christopher his mother had given him. I’d been in Paris, setting up a new team, when I’d heard through a contact that William Andrew Philip Bodie was working for CI5. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I was. CI5 was exactly the sort of firm Andy would have ended up working for, the bloody Cub Scout.”

Doyle couldn’t mistake the affectionate pride in McAllister’s voice when he said that.

“I came to London as soon as I could. I wasn’t even really planning on talking to Andy, if he’d gone to work for CI5 I didn’t want to be an embarrassment to him, I just needed to see with my own eyes that he was alive and well. Even wondered what he looked like now. And then I saw Billy and knew the truth.”

“The truth?” Doyle asked.

“That he’d murdered Andy for his passport, traded his sordid background for Andy’s clean record. That’s when I knew I was going to kill him, the little poof. Always knew he’d fancied Andy and queers can turn vicious when they’re frustrated. Course now he has you, right, poppet?”

“Bodie’s not gay.”

“No, he wasn’t but your Billy is. Still, you must be a good fuck, he wouldn’t tell me or Dawson where to find you and Dawson asked him really, _really_ nicely.”

“You don’t mean he...” Doyle’s voice trailed off as he thought about how Dawson had been leering through the holding cell bars at him as he’d come down the corridor.

“Christ no, none of my men are poofs, learned my lesson with Billy. Still, after Dawson was finished with him, not sure he wouldn’t have preferred it.”

Doyle had turned to march blindly from the room, McAllister’s voice yelling after him “he’s a murderous coward who turned on his only friend for a bloody passport. You should think about that, pretty boy.”

 

He’d gone straight to Cowley’s office. “Is he done with the Minister, Betty?”

“Yes, but—”

Doyle had ignored her, sweeping straight in to Cowley’s office. Cowley had been about to bark at him and then had looked closer.

“You went to McAllister’s interrogation.”

“Yes.”

“Against my explicit instructions.”

“No. You never told me I couldn’t be there, never told me it was even happening, just packed me off to Brixton to play chauffeur.”

“This is rather unfortunate.”

“ _Unfortunate?_ ...You bastard, you already knew, didn’t you?”

“Sit down, Doyle. I’ll excuse your insubordinate language, just this once. Sit down!”

Doyle sat. Cowley poured them both a whisky and Doyle drank his in one swallow, thumping the glass back down on Cowley’s desk.

“I said unfortunate and that’s what I meant. I’d hoped to avoid this discussion.”

“Too bloody late for that.”

“Perhaps. Although, strictly speaking this really isn’t any business of yours.”

“Not my business? My partner, the person I trust to have my back is a murderer and that’s not my business?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, man. You can’t believe everything McAllister tells you.”

“So, Bodie’s _not_ Billy?”

“Aye lad, he is that.” Cowley leaned back in his chair. “Bodie had only been working for CI5 for six weeks when he asked to speak to me. He told me that he felt I deserved his loyalty and told me the whole sorry story in great detail. I was pleased.”

“You were _what?_ ”

“I’d already known all about it except for a minor detail or two. We run very thorough background checks for CI5. I’d decided to give him three months to tell me before taking action and he told me after six weeks. Yes, I was pleased that he was ahead of schedule.”

Doyle could feel his temper rising again as he thought over the fact that neither Bodie nor Cowley had felt it necessary for Doyle to know the truth.

“What about Billy killing Andy? So now CI5 is all right with that sort of thing is it? Keeping Billy in the wings in case you need someone assassinated?”

Cowley slammed his hands on his desk. “I would suggest you say nothing more, Doyle, without thinking carefully first. Of course Bodie and yes, that’s the name I’ll use, he’s earned it, wouldn’t have killed Andy in cold blood. Think, Doyle, you’re smarter than this. A man should be judged by his actions, think about who you know Bodie to be. He’s no choirboy, far from it, but still a man whose biggest single fault is unswerving loyalty. He doesn’t have it in him to betray a friend. Think how many times that loyalty has saved your life.”

 

The problem had been that Cowley didn’t know what Doyle was really so upset about and if there was one person Doyle really couldn’t explain it to it was Cowley. He was furious though, that Bodie had told Cowley but _not_ him, furious that he could have felt so much for a man that didn’t even really exist. Anger wasn’t rational and Doyle had poured his heart out to the wounded Bodie, he was just glad that Bodie had been unconscious at the time and couldn’t hear it. Cowley had refused to discuss who Billy really was with Doyle, leaving him in the dark. Well that was going to change and change bloody soon.

Doyle barrelled in to the cottage, searching the downstairs, the garden and then checking the upstairs. Bodie wasn’t home. Doyle came slowly back down the stairs and sank down to sit on the bottom step. He wondered if Bodie had bolted again then dismissed the idea out of hand. Bodie had nowhere left to go. He was still sat there ten minutes later when Bodie walked through the front door.

 

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	12. Chapter 12

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“Where were you?” Doyle jumped up from the stairs as Bodie moved further in to the living room.

“Mrs. Hammond insisted I come in and have some supper and then watch a little telly with them. It seemed rude to say no after she’s been so nice to me but I’m knackered. When your car pulled up I used it as an excuse to leave. Obviously your reputation precedes you as Mrs. Hammond was most surprised that you weren’t spending the night with Lisa.”

Bodie moved towards the steps. Doyle got in the way.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

“Bed. I told you, I’m knackered. I may not have chased a cheese down a cliff face but I feel like I did.”

“Oh no you’re not. We’re having this out once and for all.”

“Right then.” Bodie started walking slowly through the cottage towards the garden, stopping only to pick up his book of Keats from the sideboard as he passed.

He settled in to his usual chair, tucking the book down by his side. He tried to breathe slowly, centring himself, telling himself that if he could just hold it together a little longer, Doyle would be gone for good and he could break down then.

“You asked me about this book before, well it was Andy’s. He was the first real friend I’d ever had. The first one to die for me but unfortunately, not the last. He was—”

“I know who he was, McAllister told us.” Doyle was too full of nervous energy to sit still.

“Right, well I bet he didn’t tell you everything. You’d have liked Andy, Ray. He was everything you think a person’s supposed to be. He had principles, did Andy. He was a lot like you in fact. He was two years older than me, I looked up to him... and I was in love with him.”

“His brother said—”

“I can just imagine what McAllister said and he’s wrong. I never said anything to Andy about it, knew he wasn’t attracted to men at all and anyway, I’d have never felt like I was good enough for him, even if he had been.”

“But you’re—”

“You wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me back then. I was almost feral before I met Andy but he saw something in me worth saving. I asked him why once and he said he’d noticed that the kids in the villages we travelled through were never scared of me. He tried to make me a better man, to make me think beyond myself. It was him who taught me that if I had all this anger in me I could channel it in to doing something worthwhile. We’d been talking about taking our money and going back to England, getting out of the merc game while we were still young enough to do something different. Andy wanted to join the Paras and had dreams of ending up in the SAS. I still feel guilty about his death. He was the sort of man who might have changed the world.”

“Guilty?”

“In the sense that Andy died saving my worthless life. It was a scared old man with an ancient shotgun. Andy pushed me out of the way and took the full blast to his face, died instantly.”

“It’s him you have the nightmares about, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. They’d become less frequent over the years, but McAllister brought them all back.”

Bodie hadn’t realized he was staring in to space until Doyle prompted him again.

“You were telling me about Andy.”

“Not much else to tell. After Andy died I knew I had to get out of Africa, if nothing else because of the faith he’d had in me. I’d lost my passport and I could hardly walk in to the nearest British embassy and get a new one with no proof as to who I was, it’s not like the embassy people think too highly of mercs anyway and in that part of Africa if you were English they already knew you or you were a merc, that simple. That’s when I thought of using Andy’s passport to get home, thought I’d get it all straightened out once I was there. No one looks really closely at passports and Andy and I looked enough alike I thought I could get away with it. On the way home I did a lot of thinking about what I was going to do next, knowing only that I was going to try to be worthy of Andy’s faith in me. I thought I’d just do whatever I thought Andy would do in any given situation and hope that some of what he was would stick with me. Andy’s dream became mine, to join the Paras... well, you know how all that turned out.”

“So, who’s Billy?”

“Me.”

“I know that, cretin. I meant what’s Billy’s story?”

“I grew up in Liverpool, just like Andy did as luck would have it and with just as bad a dad. Mine was a dock worker and a right nasty piece of work when he was drunk. I learned early to stay out of the house as much as possible when my old man was drinking and that was any time he wasn’t working or sleeping it off. I roamed the streets and picked up my first bad habits. It was my old man’s drinking that finally killed him and my mum, a car accident when I was 11. I was sent to live with my last remaining family, my mother’s mother.”

Doyle finally sank in to the chair on the other side of the table. “This was your gran’s cottage, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I was a half-grown lad, cocky as hell—”

“Nothing’s changed then?”

“— with a huge chip on my shoulder about losing my parents and having to leave Liverpool to move here. My gran tried with me, she really did. She was a good woman, I was her only grandchild and she loved me, wore her knees out praying for me. Think I broke her heart. I heard a bloke up at the Royal Oak talking about his glory days in the Merchant Navy and decided that was for me. The next day I bought a bus ticket to Bristol and never looked back.”

“So you’ve known Mrs Hammond—”

“Since I was a teenager. That’s why she always calls me Will.”

“She did seem awfully fond of you for someone who’d just rented a holiday cottage next to hers.”

“When I got back from Africa I tried to come home. I wanted to apologize to my gran and to thank her for trying with me but she’d died the year before. She’d left the cottage to me and made Mrs. Hammond the executrix of her will. The solicitor had advised her to sell it and have the money held in an account for me but Mrs. Hammond had stubbornly insisted that I’d be back and then I’d make up my own mind about it. In the meantime, she’d kept an eye on the place for me. I did think about selling it but then decided not to as a bolthole in the country might come in handy one day. Of course I’d never guessed then that it would be under these circumstances.”

“But why didn’t you become Billy again after you returned to England?”

“My family was all dead and so was all of Andy’s other than McAllister. It probably wasn’t my brightest moment but I decided to keep Andy’s name as a constant reminder of who I was trying to become. I’m still trying.”

“So that’s why you just go by Bodie?”

“Andy hated his father, who was William Philip, and of course I didn’t feel like I could use Andy’s name. ‘Bodie’ was also close to ‘Billy’ which helped while I was getting use to answering to it.”

“...McAllister says you’re queer.”

“McAllister’s wrong. Billy was always Bi, always attracted to both women and men, ever since that sort of sexual awareness kicked in when I was a kid, but Bodie was straight. As I could go either way I decided it would be better to stick with women and it worked better with what was known of Andy.”

“I thought I’d remembered it wrongly.”

“What?”

“Something you said that night I kissed you and you punched me _Bodie’s not gay, never was._ So that’s why you turned me down.”

Bodie wasn’t sure what to say in response to that, so much he wanted to say and all so pointless now.

Doyle moved swiftly to lean over Bodie, resting his weight on the arms of Bodie’s chair. He leaned in to kiss Bodie, who couldn’t stop himself from responding, finally understanding just how something could be heaven and hell at the same time. He couldn’t stop himself from pouring everything he felt for Doyle in to that one kiss, the only one he’d permit himself to have. Of course Ray, as usual, had his own ideas. Doyle’s right hand dropped lightly to Bodie’s thigh and Bodie flinched so hard while breaking the kiss that Doyle started to babble an apology, certain that he’d inadvertently hurt him. Bodie rose unsteadily to his feet, the movement forcing Doyle to back up.

“I’m sorry, Ray. Shouldn’t have kissed you back but it’s been a long time since I’ve got my leg over and my hormones have a mind of their own.” Bodie worked at keeping his voice flat and matter of fact. “I’m fond of you, always will be, and if I were in better nick right now I might even suggest a farewell shag now that you know everything and don’t seem to mind it too much.” Bodie was glad it was too dark in the garden for Doyle to really see his face. “Still, now I’m out of CI5 I thought I’d find a nice woman, settle down and have a family, find someone I could love.”

Bodie almost choked on his final words but was proud of how he managed to get them out. He fought down the urge to say something more, knew he had no right to say anything more, that Doyle deserved someone better.

Doyle was standing closer to the cottage, his face visible in the muted light from the kitchen window. Just for a minute, so fast that later Bodie would think he’d imagined it, Doyle looked like the one who’d been stabbed, before his face hardened.

“If that’s how you feel about it then I should just bugger off and go and spend the rest of my holiday elsewhere. Goodbye, Bodie, look after yourself.”

Bodie sunk back slowly in to his chair as Doyle marched back in to the cottage.

 

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	13. Chapter 13

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It was almost a relief to get back to work. Doyle had barely walked in the door when he was told that Cowley wanted to see him right away. However, when he got to Cowley’s office Betty told him that Cowley was on the phone with the Minister and that Doyle would have to wait.

“Did you have a nice holiday, Ray?”

“I did thanks, Betty.”

“Didn’t you go to the Cotswolds? I’ve heard it’s very beautiful there.”

“It is, lots of old cottages with thatched roofs that look just like the pictures on the top of biscuit tins. I spent my last few days in Weston-Super-Mare, there’s a great old pier there and endless miles of beach.”

“Sounds lovely.” Betty smiled and went back to her typing.

 

Doyle had driven straight to Weston-Super-Mare from Bodie’s cottage, determined to enjoy the rest of his holiday if it killed him. It had been miserable. Unusually sunny weather, miles of beautiful beach, lots of gorgeous women looking for a holiday romance... miserable, because he’d rather have been sitting in a slightly damp cottage in the Cotswolds with Bodie, who’d made it only too clear how he felt on the subject.

He’d had to fight the urge a couple of times to return to Painswick but he knew it would have been a mistake. There was still an outside chance that Bodie might return to CI5 – Doyle didn’t want to admit to himself quite how much he was hoping for that – and he thought that if he pushed any harder Bodie might disappear altogether. Also, he knew his own temper, knew that Bodie had already taken too much damage and the bloody sad thing was that he recognized how much Bodie seemed to think he’d deserved that damage. Bodie always took things too much too heart if the truth were known, at least when it concerned the small handful of people he gave his loyalty.

It hurt Doyle to think about how much Bodie must have loved Andy to still feel guilty about his death and what it would be like for Bodie to feel that way about him. Only that’s what didn’t make any sense to Doyle he _knew_ , beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bodie felt the same way towards him that he had towards Andy, had seen the evidence of it time and time again and now that he knew that Bodie was Bi he couldn’t imagine why he didn’t return Doyle’s feelings.

He’d stuck it out for two days in Weston, moping about on the beach and the pier, trying to make sense of it all, before returning to his flat in London. There didn’t seem to be much point in paying good money to mope about in Weston when he could be moping about at home.

 

By the time Cowley was ready to see him, twenty minutes later, Doyle’s temper was on the boil. He wanted to be able to blame Cowley for all of this. Before he’d been forced to go down to the Cotswolds and see Bodie, he’d been righteously angry with Bodie and that had been a lot easier to live with. It just made him even angrier to have to admit to himself that Cowley had bribed him, not forced him to go.

Doyle hovered in front of Cowley’s desk, before slumping down in to the chair Cowley indicated.

“What did I do wrong now? It couldn’t be much, I delivered the envelope to Bodie as instructed and I’ve only been back at work for thirty minutes.”

“I know you did, Bodie’s already mailed it back to me.” Cowley removed the large brown envelope and a file from his desk drawer, holding them loosely in both hands. “Frankly, I was surprised. I thought you might stay in the Cotswolds and bring it back with you.”

“I did stay there, just not with Bodie. Toured around a bit, saw the local sights and then went down to Weston for a few days. Very relaxing.”

The way Cowley was glowering at him made it clear that he wasn’t buying Ray’s feigned nonchalance but Doyle didn’t care. He wasn’t going to discuss any of it with Cowley, how could he? _No Sir, I decided not to stay after Bodie spurned my sexual advances for the second time._

When Cowley realized that Doyle wasn’t going to offer anything more he dropped the envelope on to his desk hard enough for its contents to gape slightly out of its open flap. Doyle could tell from the corner of it that the file underneath it was a medical record.

“Did Bodie say if he might consider coming back if he’s fit enough?”

“He’s got no interest in returning to CI5. He could get past Macklin, not that it matters.”

“Men can lose their edge when this sort of thing happens to them.”

“Not Bodie.”

“Still that much loyalty at least then, Doyle?” Cowley stared down at his clasped hands resting on the envelope. “It’s always understood that the worst might happen but my men are better adjusted to the possibility that they might get shot, stabbed or blown up than they are to the idea of torture. At the very least it’s usually understood why it’s happening to them and Bodie didn’t even have that.”

“Bodie knew. He understood exactly why it was happening to him. I think his biggest problem is that he almost seems to believe he deserved it.” Doyle bit his lip. He really hadn’t meant to let that slip out, certainly not when Cowley sounded like he was questioning Bodie’s mental state. “Wouldn’t have been so bad if you’d thought to tell me about Bodie’s past or insisted that Bodie tell me, perhaps his guilt wouldn’t have been so intense.”

“It was none of your business Doyle. I promised him a fresh start. Bodie was still little more than a boy when he made his decision and it might not have been the right decision but look what he did with it. I think Andy would agree that Bodie’s earned the right to his name.”

“Finally worked that one out for myself.”

Doyle could tell Cowley was surprised, not something anyone got to see very often.

“So Doyle, does this mean you’ve changed your mind? Would you take Bodie back as your partner?”

“There’s no way Bodie’s coming back, he’s made up his mind.”

Cowley waved that to one side. “If he came back, would you have him as a partner again?”

“I’d be happy to, don’t think he’d want me though.”

Now Cowley was staring at him like he could see inside Doyle’s head. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

“I doubted Bodie’s loyalty and friendship. Like you said yourself when we last talked, those things define Bodie.”

There was a knock on the door. At Cowley’s call of “enter” Betty’s head popped around the door.

“Sorry to disturb you Mr. Cowley, but that file’s come through you needed to see so urgently.”

“Wait here Doyle, this shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes or so and we need to finish this conversation.”

It only took a couple of minutes for Doyle to yield to curiosity and nudge the medical record slightly to one side and check the name. As he’d suspected, it was Bodie’s. He was busy telling himself that it was private and he shouldn’t read it even as he was picking the folder up. One of the things he’d pondered about Bodie’s rejection of him was if he was refusing to come back because he knew, for some reason, that he couldn’t make it past Macklin and didn’t want to disappoint him.

He scanned the pages quickly as during his long vigil by Bodie’s hospital bed he’d seen it all before, even if it hadn’t been written in such detail at the time. He continued to flip through until he reached the doctors’ summary report to Cowley, which, putting aside all the medical mumbo jumbo was that Bodie was, all things considered, in good health, very fit and VERY bloody lucky. One of the doctors had even felt the need to note as an example that Bodie would have probably ended up with permanent nerve damage if McAllister had used a larger nail when nailing Bodie’s hand to the wall. The thin nail he had used had slipped between the bones. They concluded that with proper recovery time, physical therapy and appropriate exercise he should make almost a full recovery. Under it was one further note: In addition, due to pneumothorax no air travel for six months and no diving _ever_ again.

Doyle had such fond memories of Bodie in his wetsuit but in the grand scheme of things he thought he could live with never seeing him that way again. Doyle sat back in his chair relieved, already straightening the records, ready to put the file folder back under the envelope. Then he started thinking about the _almost a full recovery_ and _in addition_ statements implying that the air travel and diving were not what the doctors had meant by “almost.”

He flipped the page. Under it was small thin envelope marked “To be discussed with patient only.” It was obvious that the doctors had never meant for Cowley to see it. Fat chance, Doyle snorted derisively at the notion of keeping anything from Cowley.

He slipped the single folded sheet from the envelope and read the contents with a growing horror. Now he knew what McAllister had meant when he’d said “Dawson asked him really, really nicely.” Despite the doctors again dressing it up in more clinical language the facts were simple. Bodie had been struck repeatedly in the crotch. After which, Dawson, it had to be Dawson from what McAllister had said, had applied an electric shock via electrodes attached to Bodie’s groin. As a result, Bodie was impotent, the damage from the bruising and the electrodes so extensive that there was little hope for recovery. The doctor had noted that Bodie was lucky to have retained bladder control, all things considered.

Doyle shuffled the folder back in to order on autopilot before replacing in under the envelope.

Doyle tried to imagine how he’d feel under similar circumstances, not being able to control the instinctive shudder of revulsion at the thought. He wouldn’t feel... whole. Wouldn’t feel... Christ, that was the answer, why he’d been feeling like he’d been getting such mixed messages from Bodie, not only did he think he’d deserved punishment for Andy’s death but he’d felt that Doyle deserved better than damaged goods.

Doyle didn’t care what Cowley said or what Cowley wanted him to do he was driving straight back to Gloucestershire. If Bodie thought he was going to be making Doyle’s decisions for him he’d got another bloody thing coming. The bastard was lucky he wasn’t in better condition else Doyle would do for him.

As soon as Cowley returned, Doyle jumped to his feet.

“Sorry Sir, but I’ve got to go back—”

“Whatever you’re about to say, forget it. I called you in here to give you your next assignment.” Cowley picked up the envelope and held it while speaking. “I need you to go and see Bodie one last time and ask him again if he’ll consider returning to work. I want you to tell him what you told me, that you’re prepared to partner with him again. I also want you to emphasise that there’s still a place for him in CI5, if he wants it, whether he can re-qualify for the squad or not.”

Doyle wondered if Cowley knew how things really stood between the two of them. He had a strong suspicion that the canny bastard had known about it long before they did but to acknowledge it would require him to take action and that wouldn’t be in anybody’s best interest.

“I’ll be happy to take the lovely drive back to Gloucestershire at CI5’s expense.”

 

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	14. Chapter 14

.

Bodie was sitting in his living room drinking a cup of tea and reading the latest scandal in the local newspaper, involving prize winning scones. He’d have still been out in the garden even at this time of night but it was bucketing down outside and he really didn’t need pneumonia on top of everything else.

He’d always liked the rain, loved watching a storm through the windows, hearing the rain on the roof while being warm and dry inside. Course the last time he’d seen a storm that way he hadn’t exactly been warm, dry or comfortable. It had been on his last stakeout, before McAllister had kidnapped him. The atmosphere had been unbearable, all the things said and unsaid hanging in the air between them, and he’d offered to run through the drizzle and get them some tea, anything to get out of that car for a while. The rain had been falling a lot harder by the time he’d made it back to the Capri. He’d turned to Doyle and the breath had caught in his throat, something about the way the light was filtering through the rain on the window throwing Doyle into stark relief and he’d thought, not for the first time, _beautiful._

Lost in his memories, he was startled by the heavy thumping knock at his front door, spilling some of his tea across his newspaper as he got slowly to his feet and went to answer the door.

“All right, all right I’m coming, keep your hair on” he yelled as the knocking didn’t stop.

On the other side of the front door was Doyle, soaked to the skin and looking like a drowned rat. Nowhere near as beautiful as he’d been on that stakeout, but still lovely to Bodie.

“I suppose you better come in.”

“Nice of you.” Doyle huddled past him, to stand dripping on the parquet.

“I wouldn’t leave a dog out in this weather.”

“Charming.” Doyle gestured towards the bathroom. “Look, would you mind if I?”

“No, help yourself, my dressing gown is on the back of the door. You can hang your clothes up in the airing cupboard, don’t think they’ll get dry out on the washing line tonight.”

Bodie settled himself awkwardly back on the couch. Why had Doyle come back? Cowley, had to be Cowley who’d sent him.

Doyle came back with Bodie’s dressing gown loosely belted around him, towelling his hair dry. Bodie could see Doyle’s damp and curling chest hair through the deep open vee and far too much of Doyle’s legs, somehow impossibly long for a man of his height. Bodie swallowed deeply and looked away, pretending to focus on the newspaper he still had clutched in one hand. Doyle didn’t help matters by ignoring the armchair and coming to sit beside him on the couch, still blotting his hair dry.

“Cowley sent me.”

“Guessed as much.”

“He wants me to ask you again if you’ll come back to work for CI5.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ray.”

“Well, I think it’s a bloody great idea. You can’t hide here for the rest of your life and you should come back to London, it’s where you belong. You’ve never been one to avoid a challenge and if you can make it past Macklin it’d be a feather in your cap, if not, CI5 always has a job for you, Cowley says so and what Cowley says is—”

“What about our partnership?”

“What about it? You’re still the second best man on Cowley’s squad—”

“Oi!”

“—even in the condition you’re in now and if you worked at it you’d be back. I want the best, always did and, like it or not, that’s you.”

 _He’s forgiven me_ was the only clear thought in Bodie’s head. Forgiven. He knew Ray, knew he’d never be asking him to come back if he wasn’t prepared to let it all go. The truth was that Bodie did need a job but to go back to work with Ray, to see him every day now that... He might be strong enough to make it past Macklin but he wasn’t strong enough for that.

“I didn’t want to tell you Ray, my pride wouldn’t let me admit it, but you came all the way back here, so... The doctors think I should recover enough to lead a normal life although I’m not sure exactly what that is, but not enough to re-qualify for field work, for the A squad. I’m going to ask Cowley for that desk job. I’m sure the Cow’ll give you your choice of a new partner, perhaps even one better suited to you than me.” Bugger, but Bodie hoped Doyle hadn’t heard the waver in his voice. Of course, this was Doyle.

Doyle dropped the towel and leaned in, cupping Bodie’s face in his hands, fingers stroking lightly at Bodie’s surprisingly soft beard. “I know better, know you could make the squad again if you wanted to.”

Bodie didn’t want to push Ray’s hands away, he just wanted to enjoy the moment as long as he could. “Thanks for the vote of confidence mate, but—”

“For christssake Bodie, would you stop bloody lying to me?” Doyle dropped his hands from Bodie’s face before punching the couch. “I know you could make the squad again because I’ve read your medical records.”

“They’re supposed to be private, who the hell let you see them?” Bodie didn’t even realize his hands were trying to clench in to fists until pain shot through his wrists and he forced himself to relax them. “I swear I’ll kill those bloody doctors, they—”

“It was Cowley. Your folder was lying on his desk.”

“And you just took it upon yourself to read it of course.” Bodie was starting to get up from the couch when Doyle put his hand on his knee.

“Bodie, it was lying on Cowley’s desk while he left me alone in his office for _twenty minutes_.”

“...So he wanted you read it.”

“Seems like.”

“Christ.” There still had to be a way out. Bodie kept his eyes downcast, hoping that Doyle would read it as shame which wasn’t far off. “Well, the doctors think I could make it back but I’m not sure if I want to go back. Think I may have lost my bottle.”

“Bodie I saw _all_ of your medical records.”

Bodie’s head shot up. No, Ray couldn’t really mean...

Doyle nodded, like he could read Bodie’s thoughts. “The doctors tried to keep the details from Cowley but we both know you can’t keep anything from him.”

“Right then, now you know why I don’t want to come back.”

“I don’t see what difference it makes.”

Bodie felt like another knife had been shoved through his ribs. He’d have never thought Ray would be so callous. Stupid really, why should Ray care? Still, he had to get out before he said something he’d regret. Bodie got to his feet, Ray’s hand sliding easily off his knee.

“Look, I’m tired.” He’d thought, hoped if he were honest with himself, that Ray might regret... “It’s late and it’s still pissing down out there so if you want the spare room again it’s yours.” Bodie started walking towards the bathroom. “You can tell the Cow I’ll think about it.” Once Ray was gone he’d call Cowley and see if he knew anyone who could use a good security man or perhaps Marty would know of something for him. “Make yourself some tea if you want and if I don’t see you in the morning, goodbye Ray.”

Ten minutes later, when Bodie emerged from the bathroom dressed in his pyjamas, Doyle was still sitting on the couch, chin resting on his hands. Bodie headed towards the stairs.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

“Leave it Ray, please leave it.”

“No, I won’t.” Doyle stood up and moved towards him. “I keep forgetting what a stupid bugger you are.”

Bodie’s head came up sharply, eyes glaring.

“There, that’s better.” Doyle was actually grinning at him. “But you are a stupid bugger, Bodie. What did you think I meant when I said it makes no difference?”

“Seems obvious enough, it doesn’t affect you at all.”

“Of course it bloody well does.”

Doyle reached out to touch Bodie’s face again, but he flinched away.

“Let’s sit down again.”

Bodie didn’t flinch as Doyle’s hand dropped lightly to Bodie’s arm, but he did shake his head.

“ _Please_ , Bodie.”

Bodie allowed himself to be guided back across the room to the couch.

“I wasn’t thinking how it sounded when I said it. I just meant it doesn’t affect your ability to do your job and—”

“I knew that was what you meant, I’m sure Cowley probably thinks it’ll help me to focus on the job better.”

“Let me finish. It also doesn’t affect how I feel about you. The question is, how do you feel about me?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me. So what are we now? Just mates? Not even that anymore? Acquaintances who’ll exchange Christmas cards? What?”

“I love you, you pushy git. I think I’ve always loved you.”

“Then why’d you give me the brush-off?”

Christ, Bodie didn’t want to talk about this. “Never admitted it to myself, remember Bodie’s—”

“—not gay.” Doyle rubbed his jaw. “I remember that part.”

“When McAllister’s men...” Bodie swallowed and tried again. “...Thinking about you kept me sane through all of that. Promised myself if I survived I’d tell you how I felt about you.”

“But you didn’t because I got angry and—”

“No. You had a right to be angry. I wouldn’t have told you anyway.”

“Changed your mind then, once you knew you were going to live?”

“Changed my mind once the doctors broke the news to me.”

“See, I said you were a stupid bugger.” Doyle leaned forward and again took Bodie’s face in his hands, only this time he kissed him. Little more than a brush of lips at first, Doyle withdrew but stayed close enough that Bodie could feel the puff of air against his lips as Doyle spoke again. “Wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, whoever you are, whatever condition you’re in, I still want you.”

Doyle closed the slight distance again in a gentle but persistent pressure of his lips to Bodie’s. It was startling in its very innocence, feeling to Bodie like Ray was prepared to take root there if necessary, that Bodie would decide what happened next and his body did it for him, instinctively leaning in, returning the pressure. Doyle eased back slightly, forcing Bodie to follow him, to lean in further, as Doyle licked lightly at Bodie’s lower lip before sucking it gently in to his mouth. As Bodie groaned, Doyle slid one hand to cradle the back of Bodie’s head, the other moving to caress the side of Bodie’s neck. It was Bodie who deepened the kiss, Doyle yielding instantly before surging forward again, pressing Bodie back in to the arm of the couch, causing Bodie to yelp as one of his tender ribs objected.

“Sorry, I—”

Bodie cut Doyle off by the simple expedient of kissing him again, but Doyle pulled away just a little, obviously reluctant to put any more distance between them than necessary. “Let’s go to bed, we’ll be more comfortable there.”

“I can’t.” Bodie felt like he’d had a bucket of cold water thrown over him. How could he have forgotten, even for a few moments? An armful of willing Ray Doyle was enough to distract anyone.

“Course you can, I’m only talking about—”

“I can’t, I’m in love with you and it would kill me the first time you went off with someone else.”

“The first time I did _what?_ ” In that moment Doyle radiated righteous indignation.

“It’s only natural you would. Sex on legs you are, always been a randy little toad and in your prime too.” Bodie knew he had to keep this light. If Ray saw just how hard this was for him loyalty might make Doyle stay. “Problem’s me, I’m the jealous type.”

“Never seen you be jealous over any of your girlfriends.”

“Never cared about them this much.”

“Then why—”

“Where do you see this going, Ray? See us as a regular old Darby and Joan? It might be enough for me, it’s not like I’ve got much choice, but you do. If I were the sort who could be all right with that, with you bedding other people on the side, it might work. Trouble is I know myself better than that, had too few people in my life who really meant anything to me. No, it’d be easier on both of us if we just let it go.”

“What if we’d already been together when this happened? What would you have said then?”

“I don’t know. You’ve made it clear enough that you’re attracted to me, but there’s never been that sort of commitment between us. ”

“Well there is now, if you want it. I love you, you daft sod. You should have known that the first time I tried to kiss you. I would never have risked our partnership for anything less and I would never screw around on you.”

“Being in love with you was the only thing that kept me going in that warehouse. It’s not a question of trust. I believe you wouldn’t cheat on me but the guilt on my part at standing in your way and your inevitable frustration... I just can’t do it. I love you, I always will. I don’t want us to end up hating each other.”

Bodie had to put some space between them. He stood up again, moving over to the mantelpiece to stare up at the oil painting of those bloody yew trees, anything so he could stop looking at the disappointment on Ray’s face.

“My granddad painted this. He was born in this cottage, died here too as it happens. He ended up buried under some of them too, just like his dad and granddad before him and god knows how many other generations before them.” Bodie ran his fingers along the bottom edge of the frame. “I never really knew him but my gran said he’d planned to go to London and make something of himself, to see the world, though he never got further than Gloucester. He spent his whole life in their shadow and the poor sod still didn’t realize that nothing ever really changes. All those generations and only the ninety-nine yew trees remain.”

Doyle stepped up behind him, his hands on Bodie’s shoulders gently turning him to face him.

“No, Bodie, you’re still here.”

Doyle kissed him again and Bodie let him. He’d never done anything as hard in his entire miserable existence as not responding to Ray’s kiss. He knew that for Doyle’s sake he had to stop this now, to ruthlessly crush the voice of temptation that said what harm could it really do to kiss Doyle one last time? Bodie’s Ray was stubborn, he’d always be his Ray as far as Bodie was concerned, but it had to end now. It was a strange sort of relief to see the anger on Doyle’s face as he stepped back from him, letting his hands fall to his side.

“So that’s it then? You’re just going to give up without even trying? Then you might as well be under the ground with the...”

Bodie didn’t have that sort of self-control, knew Doyle had seen the pain on his face by the way his anger deflated and his words trailed off, his shoulders slumping.

“I didn’t mean... Look, let me tell you the truth about those trees there’s—”

“Nothing more to say about you and me. It kills me that there isn’t, but this isn’t a romance novel. I want you to have everything and I can’t give it to you. D’you know why I had those shorts on in the bath?”

“Bodie, don’t I—”

Doyle’s eyes pleaded with him to stop talking but Bodie knew he had to force reality in to Doyle’s little fantasy world where love conquered all.

“I had them on because I didn’t want you to see the bruising, didn’t want you to see the scorched skin on my balls. It was... I couldn’t get...” Bodie knew he was shuddering, couldn’t control it, but he had to finish it, for Ray’s sake. “...I’ve never felt any pain like it... and now I don’t feel much of anything at all, might as well be dead below the waist.”

He hadn’t even realized that Doyle had moved to hold him until he felt his hand at the back of his head, easing it on to Ray’s shoulder. He gulped and finished it, almost whispering, his voice muffled.

“The pain of losing you was worse, much worse, don’t think I could survive it again, so friends, Ray, that’s all I can offer.”

“All right, Bodie, all right.” Ray carded his fingers through Bodie’s hair. “Friends it’ll have to be then. Let’s get you up to bed before you fall down.”

Bodie knew he wouldn’t have made it up the stairs this time on his own, his feet dragging, leaning heavily against Ray on the narrow staircase. Doyle turned the bedside lamp on, pulled back the bedcovers and helped him sit down on the edge of the bed. Then he dropped to his knees in front of him, hands resting lightly on Bodie’s knees.

“I want to sleep with you.”

“Doyle...”

“ _Just_ sleep, Bodie. I promise I’ll keep my knickers on.” Bodie appreciated the effort of the weak grin on Doyle’s face. “Tonight I want to be as close to you as you’ll let me be and then tomorrow we’ll get up and pretend we’re _just_ friends to your heart’s content.”

“...All right, Ray.”

Doyle helped him swing his legs around to lie on his left side before walking around to the other side of the bed. Bodie could feel Doyle moving the blankets he’d put in the bed to wedge Bodie on his side out of the way. Despite paying such close attention he still wasn’t prepared for the sudden shock of Doyle’s warmth at his back. He was proud of himself for holding in a gasp as Doyle stretched up over him to turn off the bedside lamp, before settling back down and moving closer in, encouraging Bodie to lean back against him like he was the wedge of blankets. There was nothing even remotely wedge like about Ray. The warmth of him seeped in to Bodie, the contact particularly startling where the leg of Bodie’s pyjama bottoms had snagged up against the sheets, bringing their lower legs in to contact with each other, flesh against flesh. He’d always thought it odd that the Victorians had had such a thing about ankles but he was beginning to understand the allure. While he was thinking about ankles, Doyle had slid his arm around Bodie’s waist, honing in on the sliver of skin where his pyjama top had hitched up. Bodie tensed as he felt Ray’s cock stirring against his arse.

“Just ignore it” Doyle rubbed small comforting circles on Bodie’s stomach. “I’ve wanted to hold you like this for a very long time.”

Bodie didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to remember it, Doyle’s arm lightly around his waist, Doyle’s damp curls brushing the side of his face, Doyle’s lips brushing the back of his neck. He lay there and listened to the rain on the roof while they both pretended to be asleep until they finally were.

 

Bodie woke up with Doyle’s morning erection digging in to his back. He fought the instinctive urge to wriggle back against it, knowing he shouldn’t start anything he couldn’t finish. When Doyle woke up a few minutes later he carefully shifted his hips back from Bodie before climbing out of the bed. Through barely slitted eyes Bodie watched Doyle, clad only in his underpants, walk as quietly as possible out of the bedroom. Bodie dozed, not really able to go back to sleep in the morning light filtering through the curtains and waited for Ray’s return. When he did return, he was fully clothed again and carrying a couple of mugs of tea which he put down on the bedside table before helping Bodie to sit up against the headboard. After handing one cup to Bodie he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“We need to talk about our future ...Drop the scowl mate, I mean as friends. You listening?”

“Yeah.” Bodie studied Ray over the lip of his mug. He had that _I’ve just had a brilliant idea_ look that generally spelled trouble for someone. Bodie hoped it wasn’t for him.

“I still think you should come back to work for CI5. You need a job, I need a partner I can trust and if we’re really going to learn to— be friends, just be friends again, then this is who we are. Whether you make it past Macklin or not, I want you back in CI5 where I don’t have to wonder what godforsaken part of the world you’re currently in.”

“You’ve already made you mind up, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I have.” Doyle grinned at him.

“All right.”

“What?”

“I said—”

“I know what you said. I’m just finding it hard to believe that I heard you correctly.”

“Here’s the deal. I’ll come back as long as you promise to date—”

“You?”

“No, of course not me, _just mates_ , remember? That’s my price for coming back. You’ve got to start dating again.”

“You couldn’t ask me to do that, not if you really believe—”

“I believe you Ray, but I won’t hold you back from finding someone else. If you don’t agree then I won’t come back to CI5, it’s that simple.”

“Then I’ll do it.” Doyle rubbed at the back of his neck. “Never thought I’d be annoyed at being forced to date.”

“Then we have a deal.”

“One more thing...” Doyle rose to his feet. “While you use the loo, I’m packing your bags. I’ve also decided you’re going back to the rehabilitation centre as they’re your best bet to be ready to face Macklin again. I’ll drop you off on the way back to London.”

 

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	15. Chapter 15

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Ah, the glamorous life of the CI5 agent, all high speed car chases, exotic nightclubs and even more exotic women, the sort that made you want to tell nuclear secrets, whether you knew any or not. He was sure that was what civilians thought about them, if they even knew that CI5 existed. The last thing they’d probably expect was to find one of them on his fourth day cooped up in a run-down bedsit in Watford.

Cowley had him watching an estate agent’s office that was thought to be a front for Gleason’s mob. They had the place bugged and Doyle had cameras set up to snap any new faces but it wasn’t even considered a high enough priority to have him work with a partner. When the office closed, he was to all intents and purposes off duty, relying on the bugs to pick up any unexpected late night activity, but he still couldn’t leave the bedsit. That left Doyle with far too much time on his hands and only one thing to think about. _Bodie._

When he’d dropped Bodie off at the rehabilitation centre Bodie had been the one to set his terms for agreeing to stay there. After a couple of years of an almost instinctual partnership any decision now seemed to require a legally binding document with three carbon copies. It wasn’t a comfortable thought, but then assuming they knew what the other one was thinking hadn’t worked for them either. Bodie’s terms had been simple. Doyle wasn’t to attempt to contact him in any way. No surprise visits, no phone calls, no letters, no postcards, no contact of any kind. A particularly magnificent display of the Bodie eyebrows of doom had been the only response to Doyle asking if a message via carrier pigeon might be acceptable. When Doyle had pointed out, quite reasonably he felt – only one nurse had turned at the sound of his raised voice – that as _mates, just mates_ they’d always visited each other, Bodie had pointed out, almost as reasonably – only two nurses had turned to stare at them although one of them had beckoned to a male orderly – that they could both use the time to adjust to things and that if Doyle didn’t agree he’d disappear.

Doyle had left with a jaunty wave, a pointed suggestion as to the true nature of Bodie’s parentage and a squeal of car tyres. It had been the most normal things had felt between them in ages. The weeks following had passed in a blur of obbos and _not thinking about Bodie_ , Doyle only repeatedly glancing at the calendar in order to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important, like the Queen’s official birthday celebration. And then there’d been the obbo at Hobson’s farm.

 

The only thing certain had been Murphy’s imminent death, only the means of execution yet to be decided. Doyle had been pondering various methods during the long drive back to HQ, rejecting most, out of hand, as far too lenient. The rest of the squad had took one look at him as he’d emerged from the slurry of fetid cow manure and exiled him to the boxed-in back of a transit van they usually used to transport seized evidence. Murphy had accidentally, or so he claimed, pushed him in to the muck and then compounded his offence by mentioning that Doyle might have to cut his hair off to get rid of the stench.

He’d been so absorbed in plotting revenge while pointedly ignoring the gibes and the cartoonishly exaggerated backpedalling of everyone he’d met in the corridors on his way to the changing rooms that he’d almost missed what Susan had to say as she pinched her nose.

“Bit early for fancy dress parties, isn’t it? You’ve come as... a compost heap and Bodie’s _Rasputin gets a job in The City._ ”

“Bodie’s back?”

“This morning, Cowley has him working down in records.”

It had taken two cycles of soaping and rinsing and three rounds of shampoo to get the odour down to the wet dog stage, still nothing could have dampened Doyle’s mood. By the time he was working shampoo in to his hair for the fourth time he was singing along to the Pete Townshend song blaring from the radio on top of the changing room lockers.

His clothes and boots had been ruined, but he had some spare clothes and a pair of white plimsolls in his locker. Still tucking his green t-shirt in to the waistband of his jeans, curls hanging damply against his neck, Doyle had gone to find Bodie.

 

“Christ, Susan wasn’t kidding.”

Bodie was sitting at a table littered with files, a notepad in front of him. Dressed in a conservatively cut black suit, starched white shirt and dark grey tie Bodie looked like he’d been buying his clothes from Cowley’s tailor. The beard had been trimmed and groomed but Bodie’s hair now fell to his shoulders in lustrous waves. Bodie rose smoothly to his feet.

“No, hello Bodie, how are you, Bodie? Good to see you, mate?” Bodie spread his arms slightly. “So what d’you think?”

What Doyle thought was that despite still being too thin and preferring Bodie’s face clean shaven, Bodie the beautiful was back. What he did though was rub his chin, like he was considering it, looking Bodie over slowly from head to foot. “I think Susan’s wrong about you looking like Rasputin.”

“Well, that’s a relief at least.”

“You look more like John Lennon dressed to attend a funeral.”

“...Dave Allen’s job’s still safe then.”

“It is good to see you, Bodie.” Doyle hugged Bodie briefly, careful to keep his hands high on Bodie’s back and his face away from Bodie’s neck, before stepping back. “Really bloody good.”

 

Bodie’s doctors had ruled him fit enough to begin training again but he wouldn’t be cleared for field duty until his trainers decided he was fit enough to face Macklin. In the meantime, he’d been assigned to paperwork at HQ under Cowley’s direct supervision when not in the gym or down using the range in the armoury. His left arm was out of the cast and his right hand had healed well although it was still weak and the sight of Bodie moving through the corridors of HQ, flexing a tennis ball or working a ball of therapy putty in his hand, became a common one.

What hadn’t become common, unfortunately, was Bodie spending much time with Doyle. When Doyle had finally pressed Bodie on the point Bodie had very pointedly asked how Doyle could have much time for him in amongst all of his dates. Doyle had gritted his teeth and asked out the new secretary that same afternoon. He’d found himself in the utterly ridiculous position of having to go on regular dates in order to be rewarded with the very rare evening spent in the company of the man he was in love with. He developed a system of lots of different women but none of them for more than a few dates, as he felt it would be unfair to leave any of them with the impression that it might be leading to something. The truth, which he wanted to beat in to Bodie’s head, was that as he wasn’t actually sleeping with any of the women he had less with them than he would have had with Bodie, as he didn’t love them. He began to wonder just how many years of going through the motions it was going to take for Bodie to agree that they should just be together.

 

Then Doyle had got lucky. He’d ran out of single women at HQ and had been pondering the hard necessity of having to go out to meet women so he could fake dating them, when Betty had asked if she could arrange a blind date for him with her lovely cousin. Doyle had obviously surprised her by saying yes immediately. Laura, Betty’s cousin, was indeed lovely, smart and funny. Once, she would have been just the sort of girl that would have appealed to him. Now, he just hoped that he might be able to get a few extra dates in with her before moving on to the next woman. After their fourth date, she’d asked him in for coffee and he’d been reluctant to accept. She’d put her hand on his arm and said “Don’t worry Ray, I just mean coffee but I do need to speak to you.” Inside, she’d put her cards on the table. She was a lesbian in a very good relationship that she couldn’t possibly tell her family about. She dated only enough to keep her family happy. She liked Ray a lot and as he’d never made a move on her she’d wondered if he might be in need of similar cover. She didn’t ask questions about his situation, which he deeply appreciated, and she apologized in the event that she was wrong. Of course she wasn’t wrong and a deal had been struck. They talked about themselves as a couple, but didn’t actually see much of each other, mainly going to a few public events together where Laura’s family or the squad would be in attendance. Doyle was both delighted and frustrated to realize that Bodie was more relaxed around him again as a result of his fake relationship with Laura.

 

Then, a momentous event had occurred. Two weeks ago, one hundred and forty-three days after they’d rescued Bodie from the warehouse, or thereabouts, Bodie had stunned HQ when he’d turned up at work clean shaven with his hair neatly cropped back in to its previous short style. Wearing an open necked black shirt, tight black moleskin trousers and a black leather jacket and boots, Doyle wasn’t the only one Bodie left breathless although unfortunately he was the only one who had to conceal the fact. The overheard buzz amongst the secretaries was almost more than he could stand to hear and yes, Lizzie was right, Bodie did have a very lickable neck. Bodie had surprised him further when for the first time since he’d returned from the rehabilitation centre he’d been the one to ask Ray if he wanted to go out to dinner after work. Doyle had embarrassed himself with how fast he’d been to say yes, stumbling over his words in the process, leaving Bodie grinning broadly at him. After four hours of chasing leads for Cowley that had gone nowhere, Doyle had returned to HQ to find a very subdued Bodie who’d mumbled his excuses, something about having to get up early for a training session, and cancelled their plans to have dinner. Bodie had been avoiding him ever since and that was what Doyle had been worrying at like a dog with a bone. What exactly had changed in those four hours?

 

Doyle’s brooding was interrupted by the R/T, Cowley telling him that he’d decided on a different approach and that he should get his things together as Bodie was on his way to pick him up.

Bodie had parked in the alley behind the bedsit and had just got out of the car as Doyle had walked out of the building. Across the alley, the door to a lock-up was sliding up and Gleason stepped out of it carrying a box. Doyle had seen the moment Gleason recognized the surveillance equipment he was carrying like it was passing in slow motion across his face. Gleason dropped the box and went for his gun as Bodie hurled himself towards Doyle, both of them firing at the same time, Gleason dropping to the ground as both bullets hit home, his own gun aimed too high to hit two men now down on the ground in a tangled mess of arms and legs. Bodie grinned down at Doyle, laughing breathlessly, before kissing him and then pushing up quickly to go and make sure that Gleason was dead. He was.

 

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	16. Chapter 16

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Bodie studied himself in the full length mirror mounted on the inside of his wardrobe door. Naked, he’d been looking himself over in minute detail, turning this way and that to be able to see his back as well. He could just imagine Ray’s sarcastic remarks if he could have seen how much time Bodie had just spent in front of that mirror. The truth though, was that he’d got out of the habit of looking at himself at all, eyes carefully not dipping below what he could see in his shaving mirror.

All things considered, it was amazing how well he’d healed. Too many new scars, both inside and out, but he’d survived another one and made a recovery that has stunned his doctors.

After debriefing the pair of them on the Gleason shooting, Cowley had told them that Bodie’s trainers and doctors had declared him fit enough to return to active service and he’d then asked Doyle, in front of Bodie, whether he still wanted to be partnered with him. Despite the fact that he knew Doyle had made peace with everything, he was still deeply relieved to hear Doyle say he did. Cowley had then told them that with the partnership question settled, they would both be spending the next week with Macklin to be evaluated. Bodie could tell that Cowley was almost as stunned as Bodie was when Doyle didn’t even complain, just nodded his agreement.

Outside Cowley’s office, Betty had asked Doyle where he was taking Laura to dinner and Bodie had said his goodbyes and gone home. And here he was, standing naked in front of a mirror thinking about whether he was really ready to be at Macklin and Towser’s tender mercies again and about how badly he’d fucked up by kissing Doyle, although it looked like he’d got away with it. He closed the wardrobe door and went to take a shower.

He liked showers, had been pathetically thrilled in fact when this CI5 assigned flat actually had one. He stood under the water, leaning in to the wall, letting the heat of it sink in to his shoulder muscles that were still slightly tighter than they should be. He allowed himself to indulge in the memory of when he’d accidentally seen Doyle in the changing room showers just a couple of days beforehand.

That was when Bodie realized that he hadn’t got away with it at all. His first clue was the hammering on his bathroom door. His second clue was Doyle yelling at him.

“You bastard! D’you hear me Bodie? Get out here now!”

“It’s a bit of a bad time, Ray, I’m in the shower!”

“Then I’m coming in.”

Bodie heard the door open and could see Doyle’s shadow through the shower curtain. He looked down. _A really bad time._

When Doyle spoke again, his voice merely inches away behind a blue shower curtain, it was oddly subdued. “I might be losing my fucking mind, it’s certainly felt that way the last few months but I’m sure... I think... Look, there was the adrenaline of the run-in with Gleason, then the elation of hearing that they think you’re ready for Macklin and really I might be ready for the nuthouse, all things considered, but when you kissed me in that alley was that really your... erection digging in to my thigh?”

Bodie looked down again at the accused, which was still standing to attention in the dock, despite Bodie’s trying to will it away. The memory of Doyle in the shower had been enough to cause it and now the low murmur of Doyle’s voice talking about his cock wasn’t helping anything either.

“Bodie?”

Bodie tried to think of something to say but it was really difficult when it felt like all his blood was flowing south. Doyle’s shadow loomed larger as he stepped closer.

“Bodie? Answer me!”

There was the anger Bodie had been expecting. Bodie backed up fast as the curtain was thrown back.

“Bodie, I—” Doyle’s eyes dropped from Bodie’s face to follow the movement of Bodie’s hands as he belatedly moved to cover himself. He was too late. “I was right, I was fucking right.”

Doyle didn’t even pause, clambering straight in to the shower fully clothed, almost tripping on the high side of the bath in his haste.

Bodie was pressed back in to the wall by Doyle, the wet denim of his shirt and jeans grazing Bodie’s overly sensitized skin. Bodie opened his mouth to speak, only to end up with a mouthful of Doyle’s tongue while his hands dropped to Bodie’s slick hips, pulling him in even closer. Doyle ripped his mouth away, groaning, pressing his forehead against Bodie’s.

“Tell me that you want me.” Doyle tongued at the fading scar over Bodie’s right eyebrow, before moving over to his ear, sucking on the lobe.

“Tell me, Bodie, tell me” Doyle chanted it, moving to bite down the side of Bodie’s neck, his hands sliding back from Bodie’s hips to grab his arse, grinding in to him again.

“Tell me that you want me.” Doyle dropped to his knees before Bodie could stop him, curls flattened to his head by the shower, denim clinging wetly to his body as he sat back on his heels staring up the length of Bodie’s body, his passion blown pupils making him look sloe eyed. “Tell... me.”

“Never wanted anyone as much.”

Ray licked one long strip up the length of him before sucking him deeply in to his mouth. Bodie’s hands rested lightly on Ray’s sodden curls, before he slid one hand to cup his face, feeling the tumescence in the fine skin of Ray’s cheek caused by his own cock.

Ray’s hands slid back across Bodie’s hips to grip his arse, urging him forward to fuck his mouth. There was no escaping the hunger of it, his gathering orgasm hot at the base of his spine, his fingers tightening in Ray’s hair, but still he tried to hold it back, knowing that for this moment in time at least Ray was his. Ray, of course, had other ideas, relaxing his throat to swallow Bodie even further as one finger slid to press against his hole and his other hand caressed Bodie’s balls. Ray swallowed everything he had to give, licking him clean.

Bodie would have been embarrassed at how fast he’d come only, afterwards, lying wrecked together in the bottom of the bath, kissing lazily, the water still beating down on them, he reached for Doyle’s zip only to hear him murmur that he’d already come in his jeans just from finally getting his mouth on Bodie. They helped each other to climb out of the bath on shaky legs and then they set about the awkward task of peeling Doyle out of his wet clothes.

Doyle would have stopped at the bed, but Bodie pulled on his dressing gown, handed Doyle a pair of tracksuit bottoms and led the way in to the kitchen, before putting on the kettle and making tea. Finally, they faced each other across the kitchen table, mugs in hand.

“What’s going on here?” Doyle gestured back and forth between them with his mug. “Feels like a summit meeting... or is this something you just always like to do after having sex?”

Bodie stared at Ray over his mug, gathering himself to try to sound as matter of fact as possible. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t expect you to change your plans.”

“That’s good.” Doyle slurped his tea. “...What plans?”

“To get married of course.”

“Oh, those plans.” Doyle took another slurp and wrapped his other hand around Bodie’s non-tea mug wielding one. “Much as I love you Bodie, I can’t marry you, I’m sorry. Not unless they change the law of course, in which case, if you can raise a big enough dowry I’d consider—”

“—to Laura, your plans to get married to Laura.”

“So, that’s why I didn’t get dinner.”

“Wait, what?”

“C’mere, you fool.”

Doyle leaned across the table and dragged Bodie in to a kiss by the simple expedient of grabbing his ears. Luckily, Bodie managed to avoid spilling his tea over both of them. When Doyle broke the kiss Bodie sat back, rubbing at his ears.

“That day two weeks ago, when you dropped the Rasputin look and came in to work looking like the Milk Tray man, you knew then that your parts were all in working order again, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Well above the national average” Bodie sniggered.

“So I’ve seen, idiot. Meant how long had you known, of course.”

“About two months.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to tell me?”

“Oh, I felt the need all right, I just had to be sure. I woke up one morning with my pyjama bottoms clinging damply to my crotch. Didn’t let myself get too hopeful at first, but when it happened a second time I decided to take the matter in hand.”

It was Doyle’s turn to snigger.

“Well, it worked, not well, hadn’t been that quick to come since I’d been a teenager, but it worked. I went back to see the doctor who’d been the one to break the bad news to me.”

“To punch him?”

“... It did occur to me. Anyway, he said the body has an amazing ability to repair itself and that it had been the... electrical shock part of it that had been so difficult to predict, understandably very little medical research on the effects of _that_. Then he got off in to some psychological mumbo jumbo about how the trauma of that happening to me had shut down my body’s normal association of pleasure with sex, blah, blah, blah... no erections for me being the result. He thinks my brain got a chance to reset itself because I was pouring all of my energy in to getting fit enough to be in CI5 again and not in to thinking about sex.”

“And what do you think about that?”

“I don’t think, I _know_. If I couldn’t have you then I didn’t care... well, much, about whether my cock worked or not.”

“But then you still waited even after talking to the doctor.”

“Had to. He also mentioned some other problems that might show up because I was getting erections again and I didn’t want to risk saying anything to you without being sure I was really all right again.”

“So what happened two weeks ago?”

“Betty told me about you and Laura getting engaged. She was so excited she had to tell someone and apparently I’m someone.”

“I’m not engaged.”

“Well, as good as, Betty saw the two of you looking at rings.”

Doyle burst out laughing, standing and dragging his chair around to Bodie’s side of the table before sitting down again and leaning in and kissing him. Bodie wasn’t so easily distracted. Well, not after a few minutes anyway, when he broke the kiss.

“What’s so funny, Ray?”

“Laura was looking for a ring for her girlfriend. Laura and I’ve had a little... understanding. She gets to call me her boyfriend to keep her family off her back and I get to call her my girlfriend to, well...”

“Keep me off your back?”

“And to stop you vanishing from CI5.” Doyle slid his hands in to Bodie’s hair, pulling him towards him and kissing him. “Couldn’t do it, Bodie, couldn’t be with anyone else, I just wanted you.”

 

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	17. Chapter 17

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Doyle sighed heavily, his tired muscles finally relaxing in the hot bath, his hand around Bodie’s waist slowly sliding to his stomach. Bodie made a contented “hmmm” sound and leaned back even further in to Ray’s left shoulder, turning his head to press a kiss briefly to his throat.

Two days ago they’d dragged their bruised bodies in to Cowley’s office to hear Macklin’s decision. Bodie had been reinstated to active service and informed that Towser was recovering nicely from the dislocated shoulder Bodie had given him. Cowley had then announced magnanimously, that they both had the weekend off and would be assigned again as partners on Monday morning, unless they were needed for something before then of course.

Outside Cowley’s office they had looked at each other and as of one accord said “the cottage” before hastening back to their flats to pack their bags. And here they were, proving that a huge bath had its definite advantages.

Doyle should have been content, should have been but wasn’t quite. They’d only had a few nights together before being sent to Macklin but they’d made the most of them, learning each other’s bodies, only really sleeping when they’d passed out from the most pleasurable sort of exhaustion. Only the couple of times Doyle had tried to move things on further, Bodie had distracted him with his mouth. It was a very effective method, Bodie’s technique was devastating and he could feel himself hardening against Bodie’s back, just thinking about the sight of Bodie’s lips wrapped around his cock.

Perhaps beautiful Bodie baulked at buggery. Doyle grinned briefly at that one. It was true that some men did baulk at buggery. If Bodie were one of them he’d learn to live with it, after all, as he’d still wanted to be with Bodie when he was impotent everything they did have together could be seen to be an unexpected bonus. Doyle’s fingers tightened slightly on Bodie’s stomach, bringing a small grunt of protest before he relaxed his hand, stroking lightly instead. Still, something was off, he had strong suspicions that Bodie wanted it as much as he did. So what was wrong?

“What are you thinking about Ray? I can hear your gears whirring from here.”

Doyle let his hand slide even further down to Bodie’s cock, enjoying feeling it begin to harden in his loosely cradling fingers. “I was thinking about how much I want to feel this sliding slowly in to me, filling me.”

Bodie’s cock twitched and hardened further, belying what he said next.

“...Don’t like it, I’m sorry Ray, but I just don’t like it... Now you in me on the other hand...”

If Doyle believed him, it wouldn’t matter. Some men just preferred to bottom and that was all there was to it, but he _didn’t_ believe him. Bodie was just too fascinated by Doyle’s arse for it to be true. Even before they’d started having sex Bodie had taken every opportunity to put his hands on Doyle’s arse and Bodie had lavished attention on it since they’d been sleeping together. No, Bodie was definitely lying to him. He just had to work out why.

“Bed, Bodie, now.”

 

Languidly kissing, bodies intertwined, Doyle deliberately set a slow pace of lovemaking designed to leave them both relaxed and strung out, Bodie happily following his lead becoming almost boneless beneath him. He dropped his hand to Bodie’s half-hard cock before tonguing at Bodie’s ear, causing him to shudder deliciously.

“I want your cock in me, Bodie, want to feel you deep inside me. Want to watch your face as you come in my arse.”

“...I told you, Ray, I only like it the other way round.”

Bodie _was_ lying to him, no question about it, the evidence tangible as Bodie’s now fully erect cock strained at his hand. Again, Ray considered letting it go, if Bodie didn’t want to tell him why he was lying about it then that was Bodie’s business... Only look what keeping secrets had almost done to them... but how to get Bodie to tell him the truth? It was difficult to concentrate with Bodie’s fingers lightly stroking the small of his back, his mouth busy exploring Ray’s neck. That was it, Bodie had already proved himself a generous lover, attentive to any need or want of Ray’s even partially expressed.

“What about what I want, Bodie?”

Bodie moaned as Doyle started slowly stroking his cock.

“I’ve always topped, always wanted to try it on the bottom but there was never anybody I trusted enough, loved enough, before to let them do it to me, but I want you, all of you.”

Doyle saw fear flash across Bodie’s face as his body tensed up under him and for one awful moment he thought Bodie was going to throw him off and bolt. Now he _had_ to know what the hell was going on.

“If you really don’t like it I won’t ask you to do it again, I promise, but you can do it once more at least, just for me, can’t you?”

“...All right Ray, if that’s what you really want, I’ll do it.”

 

Bodie hovered in a hesitant fashion, muscles still too tense, the lube clutched so hard in one hand it looked like the tube might burst under the pressure. Ray reached up and pulled him down to him, kissing him, rolling Bodie over on to his back. Bodie’s cock had gone lax again and Doyle knew he was going to have to switch Bodie’s brain off, in this case accomplishing it by the simple expediency of almost sucking it out through his cock, leaving it rock hard and arching back towards his stomach.

Doyle sat back on his heels to admire his handiwork, careful to let Bodie see his naked admiration, licking his lips as he looked down at him. Bodie dragged Ray back down to him, one hand tangling in the curls at the back of his neck, feasting on his mouth before rolling them so Doyle was beneath him again and continuing his onslaught across Ray’s chest and stomach with tongue and teeth, leaving his nipples hard and aching in his wake, to say nothing of his hard and aching cock which Bodie ignored on his way to graze on Ray’s thighs.

Ray was on the verge of issuing death threats when Bodie’s tongue found its way unerringly to the puckered skin back behind Ray’s balls and he arched up off the bed. Bodie’s hands slid under his arse, palming him.

“Like that, do you?”

“Less... talk... more... action.”

Bodie really did take direction beautifully, his tongue alternating between being a hot, wet, slow, firm drag across sensitive tissue and a furled invader.

Ray was breathing heavily, bucking against Bodie’s mouth, thighs splayed wide and wanton when Bodie finally eased back. He felt the first slicked finger breach him as Bodie surged forward and up, swallowing his cock.

Doyle, who hadn't been lying about not doing this before, felt uncertain for the first time as Bodie added another finger stretching him wider, his cock softening slightly despite being surrounded by the maddening heat of Bodie’s mouth. Bodie pulled back, stilled, but didn’t remove his fingers as he looked up the length of Doyle’s body.

“Do you want me to stop, Ray? You can still have me instead.”

Doyle thought about it for a second or two, knowing if he told Bodie to stop he might not get another chance to find out what was wrong with him. “Later... Keep going, I want this.”

Bodie grinned at him, licked up the length of his cock and twisted his fingers, pressing in further.

“Bodie!” Just for a moment, Doyle thought the back of his head might blow off.

“Hello, Ray’s prostate.”

Doyle grinned at him, panting. “Berk. Do that again.”

Bodie did, lowering his head once again to suck Doyle’s cock before Ray dragged him off.

“Did you change—”

“Inside me, Bodie, told you, I want to come with you inside me.”

 

Uncomfortable at first, pushing the line between pleasure and pain, Bodie’s cock so much larger than his fingers had been, Doyle was relieved when his muscles finally relaxed a little around the alien fullness, allowing Bodie to slowly slide all the way home.

Then frustration set in, Bodie’s speed making glacial displacement look fast, the frustration only getting worse as Bodie finally angled to stroke over his prostate, only to slowly withdraw again. Doyle wrapped his legs tightly around Bodie and surged up against him, demanding to be fucked harder, fucked faster, fucked _now._

As Bodie sped up, Doyle’s mind switched off as that instinctive connection they’d always had between them flared and they found their rhythm together. Ray’s fingers urging him on left bruises in the flesh of Bodie’s pumping arse, as Bodie babbled obscenities, licking and biting any part of Doyle he could reach, before wrapping his fingers around Doyle’s impossibly hard erection, too tight, too rough, too perfect.

Doyle was beyond the power to do anything but grunt Bodie’s name as he spilled over Bodie’s fingers and across his own chest, his muscles clamping down hard, and felt Bodie grind to a halt buried balls deep in him, spine bowed backward like he was suspended there. He felt Bodie’s cock pulse as Bodie yelled his name and collapsed on top of him.

Sweaty, dishevelled and in imminent danger of sticking together they lay there panting and grinning at each other like idiots until Bodie lowered his head and kissed him thoroughly. They both groaned as Bodie’s cock slid free, before Bodie rolled slowly to his back. They lay there side by side for a few minutes, just drifting, until Doyle rolled up on to one elbow to look down at Bodie.

“So, you going to tell me what all your ‘I don’t like it’ palaver was about?” when Bodie didn’t answer immediately Doyle continued “because if you want to do that again you’re going to have to tell me.”

“Nah, want you to do me next.”

“Well, if you want me to do you next you’re—”

“All right, all right, I’ll tell you. When I went back to see that doctor he told me about other problems I might have, like priapism. That’s when—”

“I know what it is, Bodie. But why...” Doyle started grinning broadly, “You didn’t think...” he couldn’t stop himself from laughing, collapsing on to Bodie’s chest before he finally got it under control. “You couldn’t possibly have thought we’d get locked together like dogs or something.”

Bodie shifted beneath him. “... It might have crossed my mind.”

“And you didn’t think it was worth the risk anyway? You take bigger risks than that all the time.”

“I risk me, Ray, I _never_ risk you.”

Doyle had to kiss him again for a long time after he said that.

“Just tell me the next time something’s bothering you, Bodie. There’s nothing we can’t fix or change as long as we’re in it together.”

“When I’m with you, I believe it.” Bodie twined his fingers idly through Doyle’s curls.

“You should, you know.” Doyle laid his head on Bodie’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, enjoying the feel of Bodie’s caressing fingers against his scalp. “I tried to tell you once already, but you weren’t ready to listen to me. That WI lady at the church told me they finally counted the trees properly a year ago and that there are now a hundred and three of them. Even your bloody yews have changed, given a few hundred years. Think what we should be able to manage to do between us.”

 

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End file.
